


That Hawk Is Dead

by rednihilist



Series: Colin Luthor 'Verse [15]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Drama, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rednihilist/pseuds/rednihilist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite." ~William Blake</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> This is a crossover fic of sorts between my own Colin Luthor 'verse stories and the alternate Smallville world seen in the season ten episodes "Luthor" and "Kent."
> 
> Disclaimer: "Smallville" and certain characters belong to Miller-Gough et al. No profit is gained from this writing—only, hopefully, enjoyment.
> 
> FYI: One = Colin Luthor  
> Two = Clark Luthor

**One**  
  
Many times, he had wished to wake up somewhere else. He longed to be marooned on a deserted island, forced to hunt and scavenge in order to survive. He dreamed of eternally frozen tundra where even the smallest spark was salvation. He prayed for a great biblical flood, fiery column descending from on high, or plague to sweep the world clean of all life—save him.  
  
Those, he would admit to. However, in the confines of his mind and against a tiny corner within even that, he had additionally fantasized about great cities of people where all were his to do with as he pleased. He used to play out scenarios in which every happy ending imaginable was his, and he was the man to whom everyone looked for guidance. He had been a king in his corner, a benevolent ruler surrounded by those he loved—and who all loved him in return. Every single thing alive, every plant, creature, and being loved him as the sun, and it was a choice on his part whether or not to return that undying affection. In most instances, he chose love. In a few, he rarely did.  
  
Always, he'd wished for everything not real or seemingly impossible. He had wanted for something, anything, and back then all he'd gotten in return was nothing—not a thing worth anything.  
  
Self-sacrifice wasn't all it was cracked up to be; that was the lesson taught him from birth.  
  
***  
  
The warning Lin is given this time is still of the caring and personal variety, not yet edging into formality and simple habit as it will some few months from now. No, from the start it is presented as an immediate concern, not communicated in the more conversational tone that will come later but rather with purpose, and the feeling behind Lucky giving the warning is instantly and unmistakably clear. He wants only to prepare Lin, keep him informed.  
  
If only things were that simple that a warning was all that was necessary.  
  
"Everything is about to change—for a time," Lucky says, and he's not looking at Lin. He instead stares out into the darkness of another cold night at the castle. The two of them are on the balcony, talking quietly of matters best not discussed in front of anyone else, especially not Lex or Julian or Lucas' new girlfriend, who's by far too curious for her own good—Lois. The three Kents are within as well, along with a few of Lex's better managers and Lucky's friends from here in the town. Not a one of them needs to hear the strangeness that is a conversation like this one. All would be startled, some frightened, and a choice few would feel betrayed and hurt to know Lin and Lucas regularly discuss such things.  
  
It's such a happy and joyful time of year. There's no reason to completely ruin the spirit of the winter holidays, not now that the four of them are truly able to celebrate—as a family.  
  
"Everything here," Lin starts to ask, playing the familiar role of sounding board, "or is this something that will affect—more?"  
  
From the corner of his eye, Lin sees the frown appear on Lucky's face and the puff of warm air escape from his mouth in frustration. Lucas often has a harder time refining what he 'sees' than does Lin himself when it comes to what they refer to as 'the alternatives,' or the infinite number of different worlds containing different versions of themselves. Here though, at home and with regard to this world alone, there is no doubt that Lucas is always the better informed of the two of them.  
  
A few moments pass between Lin's question and Lucky's answer, and Lin is content to spend that time taking in the view of the grounds. Barely a week until Christmas, and yet there has been little snow so far this winter. It is still bitingly cold though, and the wind that never really stops has fallen into the role of white noise once more—a thick, dull roar constantly rushing in the background. The conditions are right; the board is set. All that's missing is the much needed moisture.  
  
The landscape is desolate, but life is currently anything but. Lin is, for lack of a better word, happy.  
  
So of course that's when Lucas says, "Many things will change. Don't you see it?" Then he's turning to look at Lin just as Lin turns to look at him. "You'll be there, and he'll be here." Lucky's eyes suddenly widen until the whites are showing, and he reaches out to grab and squeeze Lin's left arm.  
  
"What is it?" Lin asks, putting his own hand over Lucas'. "Who will be here? Am I going somewhere? To the Fortress maybe?" He says the next without thinking, just opens his mouth and lets the words flow out. "It's cold where I'm going, cold and—bleak."  
  
Lucky nods frantically, squeezes even harder. The bones in Lin's arm grind against each other, and some pain even starts to creep in.  
  
"It's dark too," Lucas tells him, and every word, every syllable is impossibly heavy, significant. "He'll be here, but, Lin," and that's when it finally registers that it's terror in Lucky's eyes and voice and in his hand as he squeezes, squeezes, clenches Lin's forearm, " _he'll_ be there too. He's still alive over there! He's still there and living like a fucking king!  
  
"And you'll be there too. . . "  
  
Dazed, Lin breaks eye contact with Lucas, turns back to the frozen dry prairie stretched out before them for hundreds of miles. This used to be fertile ground, he remembers. Before mankind, this part of the country was a large sea, over time narrowing down into rivers which then became so stretched out and shallow that many of them eventually just dried up. A polite desert, he thinks, and part of him recognizes the fact that he's now in some kind of shock. They live in the middle of a modern wasteland, all necessity and surface-level honesty, void of any true comfort or connection, and underneath lie deep caverns of deceit and decay just waiting to cave in at the slightest disturbance. In time, they will all be swallowed up, buried alive in the corruption humankind seeks so desperately and futilely to hide.  
  
The world is a tricky place, and Lin wonders if his imminent journey won't in fact drop him into a frozen tundra, the likes of which he used to dream and pray for—just as an escape from the constant torture his life had been back then.  
  
"And he'll be _here_ ," he whispers, his hand on top of Lucky's whose hand is on top of his arm—who feels as if he's on top of, beneath, standing side-by-side, behind, and in front of himself, all at once, a multitude of him, of Lin, Kal-El, and. . .  
  
"Clark," Lucas whispers back, and Lin feels arms wrap around his arms, and he wonders who it is being held, who it is doing the holding.  
  
He wonders if his wasteland here is anything like the others'.    
  
*** 

**Two**

It is lonely out here on the edge with no one and nothing standing between him and oblivion. There is the void, and always it is expanding within his chest. Now, few things slow it down, and nothing keeps it at bay. Soon, he knows it will simply keep widening despite everything. For standing here in the night outside all the finery and lies of the castle, he knows he _is_ devoid of any warmth or depth of feeling, like this horrid place is all the time but especially in winter. After all, he too is cold and harsh—but not made of ice or snow. No, there is not the moisture of compassion or hope in him for spring. Rather, he is dry and resolute, the bones of some small creature picked clean by all passing scavengers and now bleached and weathered by time. He is the stripped and twisted trees remaining strong in the face of constant, biting wind. He is the emptiness and silence of hundreds and hundreds of miles of once flourishing river land gone shallow and dry. He is the memory of something lush and joyful that is now severe and bleak. He survives when all else dies. He is something, and within him there is nothing, and soon he will crack open and loose every dark thing in existence upon reality—every single one.  
  
Clark looks down at the box in his hand and sees his own eyes reflected back. Or are they his? Maybe, maybe, they are someone else's. . .  
  
He's a Luthor, and he's not the only one. That's really all there is to it.  
  
***  
  
He is restrained before he even has a chance to draw breath, before he even finishes opening his eyes on this, the other side.  
  
He tests the hold and finds to his surprise that it's actually sound and studied, and if he were human or the person doing the move were like him he'd likely have to work at breaking it. But, he is not, and there is no one like him.  
  
Only, apparently there is over here because Clark goes to move his arms up, knocking the other person's weaker ones away—only to discover he can't. He flexes his arms, feels the grip of the other's fingers and palms around his wrists, and yet he cannot move.  
  
Before he can even think to modulate his expression, his eyes are widening and his mouth is dropping open in utter shock. And there's a man in front of him, but it's not anyone he's ever seen in his entire life, and while Clark's face is probably pretty damn funny looking right now, whoever—whatever—it is holding him is definitely not amused.  
  
"Come here often?" Clark asks jokingly, rallying himself enough to finish things off with a nice cold smile and blank eyes.  
  
No reaction. The other guy just keeps staring at him, and a thought pops into Clark's head, an observation really, but he mentally turns away from it immediately, dismissing it as ludicrous. It's likely the stress of the situation, and the fact that all his plans have apparently just blown up in his face, manifesting itself as acute delusional paranoia.  
  
That fucking look, though. Clark would swear it's–  
  
"I'm always here," the guy whispers, answering both unspoken questions simultaneously.  
  
Clark studies him a little more closely, looking for the signs, finally deciding with a sigh that, yeah, somehow this guy _knows_.  
  
He goes through the motions, though, for formality's sake. Clark makes a show of looking around the room, realizes he's got to be in the original Luthorcorp building from the view out the windows, and what a weird fucking view it is—all clean and busy. They must be up pretty high in the building, too. The people are like ants.  
  
"Here?" Clark mocks. "You mean to say you live here? Oh, that's so sad!" he gushes, pushing his lip out and going the whole nine yards with the sweetest, nicest set of peepers he can muster up—and he knows his innocent and sweet eyes. Nothing gets sympathy like the Bambis.  
  
But, instead of a growl or a shove or even a tightening of the hold, what the guy does in response to Clark's ridicule is–  
  
He simply steps away. Then he just as abruptly and unexpectedly states, "I'm Lucas."  
  
Clark at that moment finds himself disconnectedly wondering if he isn't the one suddenly in over his head. This wasn't in the plan. Then again, coming over alone wasn't exactly scripted either, and yet he somehow managed to botch that up too.  
  
"Lucas," Clark repeats, and he swears the guy hasn't blinked once the entire time he's been here. "Yeah, nice to meet you." Here he starts to introduce himself, since obviously the jig is up—and, boy, did he stumble into the wrong alternate reality—by saying, "I'm Cl– "  
  
Only to be beaten to the punch.  
  
" –Clark Luthor," the guy declares, his chin lifting somewhat and that familiar fucking expression reappearing on his face.  
  
"What the hell is this?" And Clark's freaked out enough to not even bother trying to get the upper hand in this situation. "Who are you?"  
  
The guy steps forward from where he'd stepped back a moment ago, and now he's right up in Clark's face again, only he makes no move to touch him in any way. If anything, though, this time is even more worrying than when he'd been physically restraining him—hurting him in point of fact, though Clark will never admit that outside of his own head.  
  
And the guy, Lucas, still has yet to blink. He's not taken his eyes off Clark once.  
  
Not for even a second.  
  
Then, his breath hitting Clark with almost every syllable, this guy, this stranger who's somehow all but bested him, says, "I'm a friend of a friend."  
  
Clark grits his teeth and wants desperately to turn his head away from those staring dead fisheyes, but that would mean admitting defeat, and Clark refuses to ever give ground again—to anyone, let alone some super powered psycho.  
  
"Whose friend?" he instead bites out, realizing when the guy then smiles that there is literally about an inch separating them. "Certainly not mine."  
  
The smile becomes a grin, and Clark knows he's lost when he finds himself swallowing.  
  
"Oh, I don't know," Lucas says, and then he finally blinks–  
  
Only to speed closer so as to whisper in Clark's ear, "He could be yours too."  
  
"What are you talking about?!" Clark whispers in frustration.  
  
Then, three things happen in quick succession.  
  
One, Clark closes his eyes and knows Father is right.  
  
Two, lips both dry and soft are pressed to his right cheek.  
  
Three, he hears what he'd been deliberately refusing to even contemplate or prepare for since first finding out about the mirrorbox.  
  
The sound of the nearby door opening, a startled intake of air, and the words–  
  
"Lucas, what the hell? What's going on here? Lin?"  
  
–as spoken in some haste by—Lex.  
  
"Just saying 'hello,'" Lucas responds, drawing back from Clark slowly.  
  
"By, what? Smelling him?" Lex retorts. There's the sound of two pairs of footsteps—one moving away and the other drawing closer. "Lin, you okay?" And Lex was the one who'd come near and Lucas the one moving back because Lex's voice is right here, right in front of him. Clark opens his eyes just as Lex is asking, "What’d you do to your hair? It looks different."  
  
Then, there is perhaps a total of ten seconds during which Clark stares in fascination as the foreign warmth and humor on this Lex's face slowly evaporates.  
  
"Lin?" Lex asks, and Clark can barely remember the last time he'd heard such uncertainty and dread in that voice. Lex takes a rapid step back and then another, stumbles away really in his haste to put distance between them.  
  
"Lex," Lucas then says, "may I introduce one Clark Luthor?" He emphasizes the first name for some reason and goes on to add, "He's lately crossed over from someplace very similar to here. Well, I say 'crossed over.' It's more like he switched places really."  
  
"Lucas, what have you done?" Lex gasps in horror, both hands now white as they clench the back of a chair on the far side of the office.  
  
"He didn't do anything," Clark corrects, and it comes out sharp more from habit than necessity. "I did.  
  
"I turned the mirrorbox, and it brought me here."  
  
There's silence again, and then Lex asks the question Clark's been preparing himself for for months, ever since he'd first picked up that box.  
  
"If– if you're here," he's saying, eyes locked somewhere in the middle distance of his thoughts, "then where's Colin?"  
  
*** 

 **One**  
  
What he truly sees upon opening his eyes are the high wood beams of the castle's ceiling, but what he wants to remember as his first impression of this, another world, is the deep red of auburn hair lying like a silken curtain or puddle of wine or small pool of too-dark blood right across his naked chest. More than anything else so clearly off about where he is in this moment—such as the fact that he's naked in a bed, in the Smallville castle, with someone else draped over him, who's also naked, who's not Lex, who's a woman—it's the hair that both unsettles and centers him. This is a different world, and that fact is clear right from the get-go.  
  
And whoever this other Lin is, he clearly bats for both teams—or perhaps only the one. Perhaps this Lin identifies as completely and unquestionably heterosexual. Although, he has a tough time believing there's a world in existence wherein he, or some version of him, is not madly in love with Lex, or some version of him. It's simply too incredible to contemplate.  
  
What is rapidly becoming an issue, however, is the situation he's currently landed himself in. He doesn't have anything against women per se, but being naked with them is not something that's ever really appealed to him. The same is true of men, honestly. Actually, apart from Lex, Lin would be happy to remain dressed around everyone really. He's spent enough of his life naked in both the literal and figurative sense, and as he lies here in this tasteless and overdone monstrosity which dares call itself a bed, with this stranger who, though in possession of some truly lovely hair, is definitely not welcome, Lin is fast approaching the point where his desire not to rock the boat here in another world will be eclipsed by his need to get. Out. Of. This. Bed. Right. Now.  
  
He clears his throat—loudly. When that doesn't work, he shrugs, contorting his body in the hopes of creating an uncomfortable place to rest one's head and thereby disturbing the sleep of one redheaded bedmate.  
  
"Mmm," is what he gets in response. It's a low sound from the back of the woman's throat that issues through barely parted lips, and Lin can suddenly see this as it happens because said woman has shifted her position atop and against him, and so now her face is no longer hidden by her hair.  
  
She's attractive, at least. The roots of her hair are just as red as the tips, which points in the direction her being a natural redhead. Her voice, when she speaks, is also appealing.  
  
This Lin at least has decent taste in women.  
  
"Unusual," the woman says, her eyes still closed, "you being awake before me." There's a pause, and then she asks in a voice full of familiarity and not a little concern, "Something wrong?"  
  
Lin debates his next course of action for all of five seconds before remembering something Lex once told him about his inability to lie convincingly. And that's true in some circumstances and not in others, but it's especially apparent when he has to actively _tell_ lies, using words and tone in addition to nonverbal cues. Lin can lie by omission like no one's business; he can deflect and redirect almost any conversation; and if he stays silent, only a few people alive would be able to guess at his thoughts.  
  
But Lin can almost never say something false believably, and that is now the situation he finds himself in. Does he attempt to lie to this woman, who seems to be some kind of girlfriend—or, God forbid, wife—of this other Lin, and then sneakily try to figure out how to get back to his own world, his own life? Or does he admit defeat beforehand and just do what he does best—survive?  
  
His mind's made up for him, though. Probably due to his silence in response to her question, the woman opens her eyes, and Lin's appearance must differ noticeably from his doppelganger's, if her widening eyes and gaping mouth are any indication.  
  
She scrambles away from him, clutching the bedclothes in an attempt to cover her nakedness, which of course leaves Lin completely exposed.  
  
But then he used to do this all the time, strut naked around a room much like this one and play the part of insolent teenager.  
  
"Wh– who are you?" the woman stammers, and she might be terrified, but her voice isn't shrill or breathless, and her body language speaks more to her coiling up like a snake, waiting for the right moment to strike, than to any sort of helpless cowering.  
  
This Lin has excellent taste in women, which makes things much, much more difficult. A weak, stupid, or unfamiliar woman in bed with him wouldn't have presented too much of an obstacle. This one, though—Lin's not getting past her easily, likely not without a lot of explaining and postulating and begging.  
  
That's when Lin decides to trust in not only himself, but also his other self. Lin left Lex for his double to deal with, so in a way it's only right that he be required to get past a gatekeeper too. So, until he can figure out a more effective method, he'll just treat this woman how he treats—Lex.  
  
And, distantly, like an afterthought immediately forced to the side in the face of more pressing concerns like getting out of this bed, getting some clothes on, and getting the hell back to his own life, Lin wonders about the Lex living over here.  
  
But, he pushes that away and holds the eyes of this Lin's lover, and he says with his hands held up beseechingly, "I'm not your Lin—clearly." The woman's eyes narrow at this as she gets to her feet, the sheet draped around her like a cloak or Roman toga, and Lin is struck with the desire to capture this moment—the ferocity and vulnerability warring within this beautiful stranger. His fingers itch for something messy like chalk, oil pastel, clay, but all he's left with is speech—and memory.  
  
"How did you get in here?" she demands, lifting her chin high. "The security is state of the art. We just updated it last week." The strength she had when speaking of the castle's defenses then slowly melts away, and her voice is thinner but still as loud as she asks, "What do you– what do you mean you're not my—Lin? I don't know anyone named Lin. Who are you?"  
  
"My name is Colin Luthor," he states, and her mouth drops open again, but he continues. "I don't know how I got here exactly, but I know this is the castle in Smallville, and I know your– your version of me, he's in my world. We switched places somehow."  
  
There's something in her eyes when he says that last bit, but he needs to finish, tack on the clincher that will hopefully alleviate any of this woman's fears.  
  
"I just want to get back home," he tells her, and he doesn't fake the note of desperation in his voice. "I don't have any interest in messing with things here, okay? I just want to. . . " he drifts off, sighing, and breaking the eye contact.  
  
"I'm Tess," he hears a few seconds later. When he looks up at her again, she's contained but not cold or unreceptive, and Lin thinks longingly of Lex, his Lex— "And there are some things you need to know, if we're going to get through this." Lin's looking at her, so he sees it clearly when she drops her eyes and takes in the fact that he's naked and then looks down at herself and remembers she is too under that sheet—and that they'd just been lying in bed together like that.  
  
"Maybe some pants?" Lin offers, trying a small smile with it.  
  
"And a shirt," Tess answers, her eyes pointedly darting down to her chest and then back to him.    
  
Lin can't help blushing a little in embarrassment at forgetting, but Tess just quirks her lips, so he counts it as a point in his favor. He watches off and on as she makes her way across the room to what appears to be the adjoining bathroom. She disappears inside and comes back out with a blue robe on and holding another, larger one in her hands.  
  
"Here," she says, holding the green robe out to him, and Lin quickly pulls it on and ties it tight. "First things first," Tess says, standing next to where Lin is still sitting on the bed, "you said 'Luthor.'" When Lin raises his eyebrows, she clarifies, "When giving your name, you very clearly said 'Colin Luthor.'"  
  
"Yeah," he confirms. "That's how I know where we are." Lin waves his hand in a sweeping gesture at the ceiling. "Well, what house we're in. I don't know which room or even what wing this is, but it's definitely the castle."  
  
Tess nods, moving to sit a clear distance away from him on the bed. Then she sighs and grimaces, swallowing as though trying and failing to keep some thought or emotion away.  
  
"Yeah, I got that," she says. "The problem is—okay, here's the deal," and she turns her head to lock eyes with him once more. This time, though, there's definite warning in her expression. It is the clearest example of foreboding that Lin has ever seen. "You're a Luthor, and as awful as it sounds I hope your world isn't that different from this one because, otherwise, you are in for one hell of a wake-up call."  
  
A chill takes up residence in Lin's bones, and it's then he remembers that conversation with Lucky on the balcony a few weeks ago. Such severe caution can really only mean one thing.  
  
"You're referring to Lionel," Lin states, and when she nods his stomach shrivels up and his heart starts pounding faster and faster in his chest.  
  
But then she adds, "And Lex."  
  
And Lin feels confusion, followed by fear, then sadness, and finally anger—and determination.  
  
"You need to—no, we need to be careful of them, steer clear. They're dangerous. You know that, right?" And she looks at him, assessing and critical. "They're not to be trusted."  
  
"And you are?" he shoots back, before he can think better of it.  
  
But, Tess doesn't seem too offended when all Lin gets in response is a serene smile.  
  
"By you, yes," she says. Then, her expression hardens again, and Lin can see the steel in her readily enough, the core within that keeps her upright in what is shaping up to be quite the Luthor cesspool. "Make no mistake, Lin," and she of course stresses his name, reminding them both why they're really having this conversation, "my goal is to see you gone and Clark back here where he belongs. I have no problem helping you get home, but only for the endgame."  
  
Lin nods, glad at least for her honesty. Pragmatism, he can work with. As long as things stay parallel like they have so far, Lin and Tess will both want the same thing. He just prays no other complications arise with the world-travelling.  
  
"So, his name's Clark," Lin checks.  
  
Tess smiles. "Yes. Clark Marcus Luthor."  
  
"At least the middle name's the same," Lin mutters.  
  
To which, Tess, devoid of any true humor, chuckles, saying, "And the last name, as well."  
  
Lin looks around the huge, gaudy bedroom as he recalls first her warnings then Lucky's. Stay clear of Lionel, who's still alive in this world.  
  
And be careful of Lex, who's somehow ended up on the wrong side this time around.

 

 

 


	2. Two

**Two**  
  
" –and what gives you the right?" Lex finishes with, and there's that look on his face that Clark knows so well, and now he can put a name to its most famous owner and thus figure out the connection between Lex and the other person in the room—the one who's not an almost exact copy of the man a decade's close proximity to has conditioned him into calling "brother."  
  
The original owner of the look is Father, Lionel, and Lex is still inherently Lex even over here, and this Lucas, who claims to be some kind of friend only, is definitely a Luthor of some sort. There's the physical appearance—which isn't immediately apparent, but once he recognizes the similarities between Lionel and this guy he can't not see them—but more than that there's the physical _presence_. This Lucas moves in a manner that's quite frankly unsettlingly _comforting_. He neither strides about like Lionel, nor glides like Lex, and he makes no gestures that are either sweeping or rapid-fire, but instead it's as if he fades into the background—and something about how he does that is bothering Clark. Something about it is familiar and utterly Luthor, and he draws a blank for the longest time, some five minutes, until finally Lex wonders aloud at the precipitating factors of Clark's arrival, and Clark then thinks about what he was doing just prior to making the jump.  
  
And it was Tess, and it is Tess, this Lucas who is never fully introduced but so obviously bears a resemblance to both Lionel and Lex. Here, apparently, Tess is—a man.  
  
It causes Clark to smile then grin then chuckle and finally laugh outright, and that Lex in response is then quite clearly bewildered simply makes it all the funnier.  
  
"What the hell are you laughing at? Jesus Christ!" Lex exclaims, throwing his hands up in typical fashion and stalking away. "It's like trying to talk to a junkie, for Christ's sake—can't get a straight answer!"  
  
Which is rich coming from Lex. . .  
  
Clark cuts off his laughter and twists his wrists a little more under the ropes. It of course does nothing to either loosen the knots or alleviate the pain they're causing, but a sound is created by the rustling and then Clark's resulting hiss of pain, and hopefully he succeeds in getting his point across.  
  
It's kind of hard to talk when bound in green Kryptonite-infused rope. Such high demands this Lex must have for his Clark over here, to be able to function at the same high level with or without meteorite close by.  
  
Clark wonders, not for the first time, exactly what this world's Clark is like.  
  
"He's tied with the rope," Lucas says calmly into the silence, and Lex waves back at him in acknowledgement, clearly irritated—most likely with himself, but perhaps this Lex is more like his counterpart in Clark's world than he'd previously thought. There, Lex has no patience for anyone, least of all Tess or Clark. To him, they are at best obstacles in his way and at worst agents of Father's will.  
  
This Lex at first seemed calmer, kindlier, more forgiving and accepting, but Clark can now easily make out that familiar thread of impatience and hostility running through him. Perhaps this world's Lex is simply more adept at deceit, his façade of harmless goodwill more cleverly and thoroughly constructed. His cunning and strength here seem to lie more in his ability to catch people off-guard—thereby gaining their trust, after which he no doubt manipulates them into thinking anything he wishes—rather than the combined force of ruthlessness and perseverance of the Lex in Clark's world.  
  
Clark finds himself preferring his own Lex to this breed of snake. At least there, in his own world, he knows where he stands, where they all stand. Here, it's too easy to meet those liquid eyes and begin to fall for the trick, the lie.  
  
There is no doubt whatsoever in Clark's mind that Lex, in this world or any other, will never truly see anyone as trustworthy, or worthy in any capacity really. And, unlike Tess, Lex is cynical, an eternal skeptic. He will never change—not in mind, temperament, or character.  
  
It's always a lie with Lex, always a game, and maybe there are reasons for why that's the case, and maybe their father is in fact most of those reasons, but Clark can remember being a child in that house. It wasn't just Lionel he'd tried to hide from. Tess could afford to play optimist. She’d come in late to the game, and, besides that, she was a woman and beautiful, and her mother had passed on to Tess certain traits that gave her a leg up in dealings with Lionel and Lex. Tess didn't have to play the game; she could change it.  
  
Clark, however, was stuck coming to the board late and decidedly ill-prepared. He would always be the odd man out, and Lex never let him forget it.  
  
And now here's Clark proving everyone right. He'd acted recklessly and is now paying the price. This Lex will rip him to pieces, and this world's Tess, this Lucas of the disturbing focus and soft speech, will stand there and watch. Lex over here, it seems, has found an ally—and an impressively and suspiciously powerful one at that.  
  
Clark glares at Lucas, the traitor, while Lex carries on with his theatrics. Here are Lionel's children right here, these two—the still, detached watchfulness and the exaggerated, confrontational quality. It then occurs to Clark to wonder if, like back home, this three-sibling relationship might not run deeper than is necessarily culturally or morally acceptable.  
  
Are these two fucking? What about their Clark? Is he a degenerate too or some kind of goody two shoes? This Lex and Lucas are certainly being a bit inhospitable to Clark, but is that due more to a protective instinct or a territorial one?  
  
Then, Clark has a mind to switch over from looking at Lucas to keeping track of Lex, and when he flicks his eyes over that way—Lex is looking back.  
  
They look the same, dress the same, talk the same, move the same, and yet this Lex is different, startlingly so. This Lex, as he stares at Clark, appears noticeably sad about something.  
  
"So what's the plan?" Clark finally bites out, wincing when he shifts again slightly under the ropes in an effort at switching the points of contact. "You just going to leave me tied up here until your Clark magically pulls his head out of his ass and manages to cross back over, or are you goin– ?"  
  
"His name's Lin," says Lucas, definitively. It's surprisingly cold in tone when Clark compares it to everything's the guy's said up to this point—which, granted, isn't all that much.  
  
"Lin?" Clark repeats, chuckling. "What the hell kind of name is that? What," he says, taking in the anger now spiking on both men's faces, "did he choose it himself? Who names their kid _Lin_?"  
  
"It's a nickname," Lex states, and while his voice is quiet, his body language is slowly shifting into the Danger Zone—controlled, efficient movement that tells Clark this Lex has had formal training too and his temper is apparently just as short as his counterpart's. "Short for Colin," Lex adds on a deep exhalation of breath, and that's pretty damn telling.  
  
That's emotion right there. That's Lex actually feeling things and allowing two other people, and most likely a few cameras scattered around the room, to witness it. Combined with the sadness still so bizarrely visible on his face, Clark easily puts all the pieces together and comes up with a plausible answer.  
  
"Is that a fact?" Clark whispers, stalling for more time as he tries to rally himself on the heels of such a surreal realization.  
  
"Lillian named him here," Lucas then jumps in with, and Clark finds himself looking over at the guy despite the longstanding habit of never letting Lex out of his sight when in his presence.  
  
Clark breathes out sharply, debates whether or not it's worth it, and then, deciding what the hell, asks, "Is she dead over here too?"  
  
Lex makes a sound, something like a hiss, and Clark can't help but look at him again now—back and forth, back and forth like a tennis match—raising his eyebrows a few seconds later when still no answer is forthcoming.  
  
"Well?" he asks. "Is it a State secret, or what? Or did something else happen? Maybe Mom ran away and left the old bastard when you were little? Maybe she and that Teague guy rekindled the old romance, eh?" Strange expressions take up residence on Lucas' and Lex's faces, but they don't respond to Clark's jibes. "Don't keep me in suspense!" he exclaims, again shifting as the new spots begin to burn under the rope and the old ones maddeningly stay open. Potency and proximity are everything with Kryptonite, and these godforsaken ropes are without a doubt powerful and immediate.  
  
"Teague?" Lucas parrots after awhile, turning his head to Lex and sharing a look.  
  
Clark catches it as Lex rolls his eyes. Then, in response to the questioning tone, Lex explains, "The elder, not Jason. It's common knowledge Mom went to school with Edward Teague. Although," and here Lex trains his eyes back on Clark, narrowing them in a familiar sneer, "everyone also knows there was never anything between them besides friendship, despite what Lionel and that harpy tried to insinuate." He waits a moment, assessing Clark from the looks of it, then states, "Most likely just another case of projecting guilt onto a significant other when it was really the other way around. There was infidelity in those marriages, but it wasn't between Lillian and Edward. She was better than that."  
  
Clark smirks as best he can while quite literally burning alive and nods his head in acknowledgment. So Lillian the Saint was still apparently as decent over here as she was back home. Good to know. And, that, along with the fact that Lex had consistently used the past tense, leads Clark to believe that some fates were simply insurmountable in all universes. Lillian is dead here too. He's almost certain of it.  
  
Then, like a siren's song, a possibility occurs that Clark so desperately longs to believe is true. It could even be argued that the evidence supports the notion, as here in the room are but two people, and at no point whatsoever, prior to just now when Lex had been showing Clark up, has either of these two made a single mention of. . .  
  
"And _what about_ dear old Dad?" Clark asks, quietly, hardly daring to hope. "How's he doing these days?"  
  
Lex's face abruptly closes off, but Lucas' ironically seems to open, showing actual, visible, demonstrative signs of emotion in the shift of the eyebrows, the loosening of tension around the mouth. And that certainly makes things more interesting. Just like back home, mention of Dad made Lex shut down and go blank, but in direct contrast to his female counterpart—and Clark can't wait to drop that bombshell on these two, the fact that in Clark's world Lucas here is _Tess_ —Lucas doesn't follow suit. He doesn't clam up or look sullen like Tess would. No, if Clark were forced to put a name to that emotion on Lucas' face, he'd say it's happiness—or at least something positive like pleasure, satisfaction, contentment.  
  
"God," Lex eventually breathes out, lifting a hand to briefly cover his face.  
  
"Oh, he's not around anymore," Lucas then says, and Clark hesitates to call the tone of his voice gleeful—but it's definitely in keeping with the thrilled expression taking up space on his face.  
  
"Is that– ?" Clark starts to ask, only to cut off with an unintentional hiss when one portion of the rope around his forearms slides back into contact with the already deep burns from his last repositioning.  
  
"Oh, for—this is ridiculous!" Lex declares suddenly. He then stalks over to Clark and rapidly starts working at unknotting the ropes. He's not particularly gentle about it, but he definitely seems determined to get it over with as quickly as possible which is really all that Clark cares about right now. He also mutters under his breath a great many things, interesting things, things that could maybe be used against him further down the line. Clark finds this even more interesting—that Lex mutters to himself while standing bent over only a few inches away from Clark's ears, when even tens of miles away Clark would still be able to hear what he says under his breath. This Lex is either careless or tricky.  
  
As Lex's fingers finally whip free the last section of knotted rope, Clark studies this man, this brother he didn't grow up with. And, the longer he's here with him and Lucas over there across the room—who's staring at Clark as often and as intensely as Clark is staring at Lex—the more he's beginning to realize this Lex's coldness is wholly unlike that of his world's Lex.  
  
Protective, he finally realizes with some astonishment. It'd either been protective or territorial, these two men's animosity towards him, and Clark is pretty sure now it is in fact the former.  
  
This is truly a backwards world, where Tess is a man and seemingly more than Clark's equal physically, and Lex—Lex here seems to love. . .  
  
Well, Lex _loves_. That in and of itself is amazing. Clark's own Lex, as much as anything back in that world he came from can honestly be called "his," is the kind of person with only two settings. "Loving" is not one of them.  
  
As soon as he's finished freeing Clark from the Kryptonite bonds, Lex draws back quickly. He stops not quite as far away as he was before, but the distance is noticeable and deliberate. He doesn't want to be close to Clark. Neither of them does, these siblings of an altogether different Clark Luthor—a Colin Luthor.  
  
Clark knows he can use that to his advantage. However, he also knows now that, more than not belonging here, he doesn't want to be here. It's too strange, foreign—alien. He can work it of course, as he can work within any given set of circumstances, but he doesn't want to.  
  
He doesn't like being reminded that others still have more than he does, despite being poorer or less attractive or worse at dealing with people—despite not having his power and abilities. And this world's Clark, this _Lin_ , is one of those people, only he does have all that Clark has. It's just he has that and _more_.  
  
It's the chasm inside him made real, this world. All his doubts, suspicions, dreams, wishes are here, and he's face-to-face with almost all that his own life is lacking. Here, there is a Lex who loves a Clark. There is a brother who is like him. There is no Father surrounding them like toxic gas, and there is still power and wealth and charm because this world's Clark is still a Clark, but there is more besides.  
  
It makes him sick.  
  
He looks away from Lex and Lucas and carefully moves his arms to regain circulation and allow faster healing from the ropes still nearby. He doesn't stand up, and he doesn't return the eye contact each man seems to be angling for. Instead, eyes only on his hands and the floor beneath him, Clark says, "I hope your faith in your brother is warranted because it's now up to him to set things straight."  
  
There's silence at that, and he gains a small measure of satisfaction at having surprised the two of them.  
  
Of course, Lex being Lex in any and all worlds, he's not quieted for long.  
  
"What do you mean?" he asks, the frustration in his voice almost tangible. "You started this, did whatever the hell made you two switch places. Why can't you simply reverse it?"  
  
Clark huffs a laugh and shuts his eyes, marveling at the sheer number of things inherently wrong with this picture. How to put into words the ridiculousness of the mirrorbox's mechanics?  
  
"That's not how it works," he finally settles for, and, unable to resist, Clark opens his eyes. Lex is almost transparent in his perplexity, those emotions so close to the surface that Clark feels he could very nearly reach out and touch them.  
  
"He'll find it," says the other man in the room, if a man he really is. Clark flicks his eyes over to Lucas and can't help wondering if he isn't just the result of another kind of experiment. Lionel and Lex both loved their little creations, and why think something like that would be different over here? Maybe Lucas isn't a brother after all. Maybe he's a pet, a companion Lex designed and assembled.  
  
Maybe he's a remnant of Lionel's "playtime." No reason to believe that would have changed either. Clark didn't think it possible a world could ever exist wherein Lionel Luthor wasn't an evil son-of-a-bitch who loved playing God.  
  
"Such confidence," Clark mocks, sneering at this—creature. All of Clark's powers and more, the thing had to be some kind of lab experiment. "Your Lin must truly be a god amongst mortals."  
  
He gets a glare in response, making him smile. Now he's back on familiar territory. If they won't get out of his way of their own volition, then he knows how to make them. After all, it's not like he doesn't have the time—or the experience.  
  
"Stop it," comes Lex's voice, and it's full of such exhaustion and _pity_ that Clark finds himself actually rendered speechless. He chances a look up, and, sure enough, Lex is running a hand over his face again. "Just—give it a rest already," he adds.  
  
He can see Lucas frown in confusion from the corner of his eye, but he keeps his eyes on Lex, and that's partly because of interest but mostly due to a lifetime of being on the defensive.  
  
Pity in everyone but Tess is always generated by something other than goodwill or affection. Sometimes, the more emphatic the profession of sympathy, the harsher is their treatment.  
  
Clark risks taking a couple deep breaths in the hopes of calming his rapid pulse and swirling emotions. He's never at his best when he's "feral," as Tess calls it, and here is definitely where he needs to bring his A-game. Unfortunately, the act also draws more attention to the fact that he is in a reactive state—close to lashing out in some way, if he's honest with himself—which means both pairs of eyes are zeroing in on him even more keenly now, no doubt taking in the way his hands are clenching and the still rapid rise and fall of his chest, and perhaps the look on his face gives it away too. Perhaps Clark's expression is as hunted and dangerous as he feels in this moment, as he always feels to some degree around Lex.  
  
"Clark," the man himself says, in such a way that is wholly unfamiliar and yet inexplicably personal, "there's no reason for this enmity between us." Lex's eyes are wide, the whites showing, but his hands are loose in front of himself, and his body language is almost relaxed, and it's a show, Clark realizes. It's a front because Lex is clearly not calm at all, but he's pretending he is for some reason, and he's staring at Clark like he's seen a ghost, and Clark wants simultaneously to rip his head off, throw it in a fire, and yet also slide to his knees and beg him to– to–  
  
"We're not enemies," Lex states, so assured and with his hands open in some kind of grand gesture, as though he's doing Clark a favor, and he always had believed that stupid Arthurian mindset of might for right, when everything they'd ever been taught in life dictated otherwise.  
  
Lex always thought he was right, and the rest of them were wrong and just didn't know it yet. Or he simply didn't care about anyone else. He was right, so he never had to question himself, never had doubts, never got caught up in the technicalities, the means always justifying the ends. Lex was an ass who never thought about anyone but himself.  
  
"I don't know you, Clark," he's saying, and Clark wants to slap his hands down, shove him through the glass desk across the room, punch his fist through that caring expression, and obliterate all false assertions of peace and understanding from the situation forever because damn right Lex doesn't know him. Lex has never known him, never cared to try, never– never cared at all. . .  
  
" . . . but I'm willing- " Lex starts to say, only to be interrupted by Lucas.  
  
" . . . we're not who they are," this stranger stranger than most declares. "You are not our brother," Lucas says, and, like before, when this was all just starting and Clark hadn't yet figured out the depth of the pit he'd fallen into by coming over here, the words are impossibly heavy in the air, some unnamable force of meaning behind each and every syllable. "But," he continues, "we're not yours either."  
  
Clark feels as though it takes ages to drag his eyes over, and when he finally succeeds in doing so, the look he receives is something he's never before seen on anyone's face.  
  
He's at a loss, somehow managing to scrape together enough brain power to mutter back, "Clearly," but there's nothing in it really. He's merely saying the words from habit. Never let them catch you giving up, someone had once said to him. Clark never does. He always gets the last word, even if it's weak or meaningless. He keeps trying, even and especially when it's hard, when it hurts.  
  
"No," Lucas says, and it's almost emphatic enough to be an argument, but the word still has something rote or mechanic about how it's spoken. It's more like a denial, as the man steps forward, and his hands aren't open like Lex's, but somehow that's better. Clark doesn't want pity; he doesn't need a handout. "You don't get it," Lucas goes on, still moving closer and closer until he's right in front of him. Then, he crouches down, and that leaves Clark above him as he sits in the chair. The daylight streams in through the windows behind Clark, flowing past his shoulders and head and hitting Lucas full in the face where he sits on his heels. What a picture they must make—light at Clark's back, his face in shadow, and all of Lucas' exposed to the golden hues of this world's sun, seemingly so much brighter and more powerful than what falls onto the world Clark is from.  
  
"I think I get it perfectly," Clark counters, wearily, his anger all but drained away now. There's a shifting sound from across the room then, and suddenly he realizes that he'd forgotten Lex's presence entirely. He moves to lift his head up and look in that direction, over Lucas' head, but a hand is on his face, stopping him, before he even gets halfway. It's Lucas' hand there like it was earlier, only more tentative somehow, and Clark meets those eyes again, and where he still expects to catch some small sliver of Tess in them, all he sees is—himself.  
  
Reflected back and reflecting back.  
  
" . . . Lucas," Lex whispers across the way, uncertain, confused, but Clark can't find it in himself to gloat over that.  
  
"You don't get it," Lucas repeats, and it's a pronouncement, and there is more in his eyes than just knowledge, understanding, or sunlight can account for, "but I do." He then pats Clark's cheek gently and smiles, getting to his feet effortlessly, and, now standing, he's like a different person entirely. The sun seems to almost swallow him whole, and with the hand still cradling his face, Lucas slowly tilts Clark's head up. "And you'll get there eventually," he says, loud enough that Lex no doubt hears it too.  
  
Clark frowns and, like Lex, is now himself utterly confused, but Lucas' smile just widens in response. It's simultaneously the most terrifying and comforting smile Clark's received, and he's still left wondering if Lucas is even human. . .  
  
. . . and whether or not he really cares at this point.

 


	3. Three

**One**  
  
Art is a slippery beast, at once easily recognizable and undefined. Books are an art form as much as any painting or statue. What one crafts with intellect is broadly placed alongside the fruits of one's hands. Once, Lin combined two mediums of expression to produce a singular piece of art. He wrote down random thoughts and musings for a week, which Lex persisted in calling a "diary." Then, Lin painted the words of one of the better passages across a canvas. Only, he separated them from one another, curved each one out of order and twisted them in varying styles. Completed, it resembled nothing so much as a spider web or broken mirror, and that—a painting comprised of countless tiny lines intertwined throughout an arguably obnoxious circular motif—was the basis for the title.  
  
Someone bought that piece, and Lin never thought of it again—until this moment.  
  
 _Perchance_ , The Periphery.  
  
***  
  
Lin goes to clean up in the bathroom after Tess has finished. She kindly points out what is apparently Clark's closet, stuffed full of expensive and well-tailored shirts, suits, and shoes. He selects clothes he's never worn, would never wear, but that will most likely fit him perfectly. Once in the bathroom, he manages to locate all the self-grooming paraphernalia necessary to make himself presentable after having spent a significant amount of time lying and sitting on a bed that was very recently used in the act of making love. Lin reeks of sex, and he's not sure how this system of transference works, but it's one of the most unsettling experiences he's ever been through, and that, quite frankly, is saying a lot.  
  
Lin's been in some shit before, but waking up how he just did ranks right up there at the top. The water is hot though, and the soap is clean, and by the end of his shower so is he. He doesn't bother with putting anything in his hair, although there is quite the selection of product on the counter from which to choose. At first, he'd assumed most of it was Tess', but a closer look made obvious the "For Men" label on many items. Seems this Clark is something of a—dandy, is the word that immediately comes to mind, and that instantly causes Lin to snort. He's never been all that interested in the image he presents to others, apart from those times seemingly a lifetime ago when, for safety's sake, he'd desperately needed to remain aloof and mysterious to Lex, and to a certain extent Lian as well. Lin detests fashion mags and gossip columns with a passion only second to Lex's own hatred of them. In the end, he mostly just wears what he knows Lex likes, or what others tell him looks good.  
  
And his hair—he sees no need to do anything with it but keep it clean and brushed. It's long enough that any curls he'd have are pulled loose and straight and orderly, and short enough that there's no need to tie it back. This Clark, though, must either have shorter hair or a good deal more invested in his outward appearance. He's somewhat of a clotheshorse, judging by the size of his wardrobe, and now also apparently one of those people obsessed with his hair. And, he sleeps with women—or a woman, at least. Lin doesn't know what this says about him personally—that, if circumstances were even just slightly altered, he'd be an almost entirely unrecognizable person with an altogether different set of priorities and standards—but right now he almost can't summon up the energy to care.  
  
He cleans himself up; he gets dressed; and he gets the hell out of here. That's all there's room for on his agenda right now. Worrying about how adaptable and fluid he is as a person will come later when he's back in his own world with his own family.  
  
His—family, of Lex, Julian, Lucas. Even Bruce is a brother of sorts, and Dick as well, with Alfred a kind of uncle. Lin thinks of all the people where he's from just going about their business with no knowledge whatsoever that something inexplicable has occurred. What is Clark doing in Lin's world right now?  
  
He takes a few deep breaths, bracing himself on the bathroom counter and steadfastly avoiding looking at himself in the mirror. What if it's not up to him to make the switch back? What if Clark has to reverse whatever he did in order to set things right? How long will he be stuck here?  
  
Then, the dam breaks, and all Lin can really think about is being replaced and no one noticing. His whole life is suddenly gone, ripped away and given to someone else, and he's left here with pieces that don't fit. He doesn't want to wake up to Tess in his arms, or to Lionel again, who's still fucking breathing over here, and if anyone were likely to be the same across the board, it's Lionel.  
  
What about Lex? What kind of place is this that he must steer clear of Alexander, Alex, Lex, brother, lover, friend, confidant, soul mate? For Tess was quite explicit about avoiding him at all costs. She's afraid of Lex. It's obvious. But, why?  
  
What has happened here? How could things turn out so—wrong?  
  
He takes another deep breath, this time holding it in and only releasing it once he's sure he's steadied his heartbeat. Lin then turns and sets about getting dressed. He must keep going. There's no time for these questions right now. Every second he's here is one in which Clark is potentially ruining things back there. Lin likes his life. He doesn't want someone else traipsing in and messing it all up.  
  
A quick glance in the mirror shows him looking put together enough for his standards, although he'll have to check with Tess to be certain. Wouldn't do to come out wearing something Clark is on record hating. He might as well ask for more information on the guy too while he's at it—unique mannerisms, turns of phrase, posture, notable opinions in general.  
  
He has to get through this and out the other side, and then someday this will all be just another funny story they'll laugh about. _'Remember that time you were stuck in another world?'_  
  
Lin opens the bathroom door and flinches. Tess is standing directly in front of him, and after he's gotten over the initial shock, he notices the expression on her face.  
  
"What is it?" Lin asks her, and as his heart continues beating, it also seems to stutter to a halt right in his chest. He knows what she's going to say before her mouth even starts forming the first word.  
  
"Better put your game face on," she tells him. "We've got company."  
  
Lin blinks, not wanting to ask which obstacle it is who's arrived, but needing to prepare himself accordingly beforehand nonetheless. He settles for simply raising his eyebrows in question, and Tess obliges by biting out a terse, "Dad," as she pivots smoothly on one foot and makes her way back across the room to the door. There, she stops, looking back at him over her shoulder and then pointedly jerking open the bedroom door. "Ready to face the firing squad?" she asks.  
  
Lin sighs then follows her lead. They walk out into the hallway together, Tess easily keeping perfect pace with him down the long stretch of carpeted and draped corridor. Such effortless synchronization on her part speaks to a great deal of familiarity with the way and speed that he moves. She and Clark must have been very close now for quite some time. The only person Lin can think of with whom he might share this same level of awareness is—Lex.  
  
Oh, how he hopes things back home are okay. But, Lex is not alone there. If anyone's capable of protecting and tempering Lex in Lin's absence, it's Lucky, and when Lin had been pulled away he'd been in Lucas' office, going over agenda for the next Shareholders' meeting. Lucky would have been right there when Clark crossed over.  
  
They'll be okay until Lin gets back. They'll have to be, and it's not like worrying and distracting himself with thoughts of what they're doing in this situation is going to help him get back any sooner. In fact, that's likely to delay his return even longer. He needs to stay focused on the endgame here.  
  
He and Tess finally reach a set of familiar stairs, and he keeps moving forward to descend down them, but she stops him with a hand on his shoulder. Their eyes meet, and it's like speaking another language he hasn't used in years. Tess raises her eyebrows then looks significantly around the area before reaching up to tap at her ear a few times with one finger. Lin nods in acknowledgment then glances down at where she's touching him with a questioning look. Tess quirks her lips, but she pointedly removes her hand and takes a careful step away from him, putting a good amount of space between them.  
  
Then, together but separate, they descend the stairs, Tess slightly outpacing him so as to lead the way to the customary meeting place, which, Lin is unsurprised to discover, turns out to be the library. In all worlds, it seems, this room is the most significant in the castle.  
  
Maybe that's why Lin hates it so much.  
  
There's no locking system on it here, though, not like there is back home where Lucky owns the property—another subtle but telling difference between the two realities. Here, Tess simply walks up to the doors and throws both wide with a theatricality Lin finds amusing. She's certainly learned how to act like one of the Luthors, even if she isn't really officially one. Lin wonders why it is that, with such an amazing woman clearly devoted to him, Clark hasn't yet proposed marriage—hasn't even broken the news to his "family" yet that he's intimately involved with her, going by how Tess made it a point to keep her distance once they were in range of the surveillance cameras. Surely, the others must know what's going on—Lionel, Lex, Lian, Lucky and the others. Lin knows he's a decent enough actor when it's called for, but what's the reasoning here? Is Tess working for Clark in some capacity, and perhaps that's what's keeping them from announcing their involvement? Does Lionel frown on workplace romances, as though he's likely to have any more ground to stand on in that area here in this world than he had in Lin's?  
  
Maybe Clark has a bad history with relationships. Maybe they're taking it slow for some other reason. Maybe Tess isn't viewed as being good enough for Lionel's "prize." There are a whole host of reasons for the obfuscation, and most likely the "why" of it won't be all that important in today's encounter, but what if it is? Lin doesn't want to be caught off-guard, not with this man, and not knowing vital information is the easiest way to become trapped and trumped.  
  
Dad did so dearly love to play.  
  
With all this build-up, Lin is anxious to just get the meeting over with. He's never been one to carefully plot and plan his actions, a fact that's put him in bad situations too numerous to count. He can't help it, though. He'd much rather rip off the bandage in one go than spend the time necessary to work it loose gently. Unfortunately, Lionel is taking his sweet time in getting to the library from the helicopter visible outside. He's clearly somewhere inside the castle already, if some of the hustle and bustle Lin can hear going on out in the halls is any indication.  
  
It's almost certainly a tactic. Lin can remember Lionel doing something much like this with certain uppity business associates and more often with Lex. Oh, how he'd loved letting Lex stew in the foyer or waiting room at Luthorcorp. He'd always been particularly—affectionate in moments like that. The more clever he thought himself, the more daring he'd become.  
  
More than ten minutes later, going by the antique clock standing guard in the far corner of the room, there comes the quick almost clicking sound of fine shoes on fine floors that heralds that presence, and Lin somehow barely has enough time to school his face into blankness before. . .  
  
"Well," says that voice in its customary condescending drawl, "let's make this short, shall we?" Then, he is passing right by Lin on his way to the drink cart, and it's as though no time has passed at all as Lionel goes about briskly fixing himself a drink.  
  
The unpleasantness rapidly increases from that point on. Despite his opening words, he does not in fact make things short, and it fast becomes clear that Lionel is here for some reason other than the business matter he's rattling on about. His heart's not in the rant for starters. He's merely going through the motions, and although, to those who haven't spent as much time with him as Lin has, Lionel might appear truly pissed off and fed up with what he terms Clark's "increasingly systemic disregard for how business is conducted in this company," the fact of the matter is Lionel only ever drinks when he isn't required to be at the top of his game.  
  
And, so, that leaves Lin in the position of sitting quietly and well-mannered through a lecture he hasn't earned, being given by a man who's just phoning it in and who always, always, whether in this world or any other, causes Lin to—feel certain things he doesn't want to feel.  
  
" –should I have desired that outcome!" Lionel finishes. He takes a deep breath in preparation for another no doubt longwinded criticism, but Lin simply cannot take anymore. This has gone on too long already. He thinks he's actually starting to feel physically ill, and there's not even any detectable trace of Kryptonite nearby. It's simply his own mind and body revolting against this man's very presence.  
  
Now he thinks he has an idea what Lex must have felt all those times he was on the wrong side of Lionel's anger. For awhile there, when they were younger, Lex would become sick after any particularly harsh rant from Lionel. He'd take it all stoically, and it was only after their father had spoken the last word and dramatically made his exit that Lex would rush to the nearest bathroom and throw up.    
  
Lin is sure in this moment that if Lionel takes one step closer to him—he will not like the resulting action.  
  
"Enough," he forcibly declares. The silence following should be terrifying, as it has that heat and resonance to it that usually preceded physical violence and particularly vicious punishment, but Lin finds he is actually somehow beyond feeling terrorized by this man. Rather, he is fed up, sick that he's let it go on this long already. He lived through this once; damned if he'll suffer it all again.  
  
Lin raises his head up from where he'd been focusing on his hands, his clenched fists, and meets Lionel's eyes head-on.  
  
"How dare you– !" he hisses, but Lin pulls himself up to his full height as he pushes away from the side table, and he can see the exact moment when Lionel remembers who it is he's talking to—what Lin and Clark are capable of.  
  
"I've dared very little up to this point," Lin says quietly, and it's as true a statement for him as it apparently is for Clark. They both have allowed themselves to be cowed, manipulated, and repeatedly victimized by this tiny, tiny little man, and for what? "I think it is you," he states, ignoring Tess' frantic motioning across the room for him to stop, "who presumes too much."  
  
Lin swallows back what can only be bile and closes the distance between them. He towers above Lionel, and Lin revels in that fact even as some part of him is curling up in fear of the consequences of this demonstration.  
  
"You forget who you're speaking to," Lionel says, and the ice in his voice is as familiar to Lin as the warmth of the sun on his face.  
  
It's like coming home after all these years.  
  
"I know who you are," Lin whispers into Lionel's ear, having moved close as only he and Lucas can—unable to be seen by human eyes, just _there_. There's a beautiful moment following this wherein Lionel flinches and audibly gasps, and Lin can practically taste the fear seeping from his pores. "I know what you're capable of, and someday you'll meet your end, _Father_ ," and Lin spits the word out like the offal it is, "and it will be glorious." He moves back, nearly colliding with a visibly horrified Tess standing directly behind him, but his eyes are pinned on Lionel.  
  
Eyes as round as saucers, he rasps, "You've gone mad," and Lin grins, really and truly grins with utter delight. If this is the response taking the initiative produces in Lionel, Lin regrets not having done it with his own Devil years and years before. This is better than any therapy session with Daniel or long, drawn out pep-talk from one of his brothers could ever be.  
  
"Clark," Tess whispers emphatically, stepping closer and tentatively setting a hand on his arm, "we should go." The hand curls around his upper arm and squeezes, tightly, but Lin can barely feel it over the swell of pride and pleasure rushing through him. He never got the chance to say goodbye to Lionel in his world. He ceded that right to Lucky, but right now he can't help but think–  
  
"Clark!" she bites out, now desperately pulling on his arm for all the good it does her. "We're going to be late for that meeting," she hastily tacks on, and all three of them know it's a bald-faced lie.  
  
It succeeds in doing what she'd intended, however. Lin breaks eye contact with Lionel to turn to Tess. She's as white as a sheet and sweating, and he wonders what precisely it is that she's afraid of right now—Lionel and his anger or _Lin and his_.  
  
"You're right," Lin agrees, forcing the words out before he can second-guess himself. He can't take them back now, has to leave, and that's the only viable option here. If he were to stay. . .  
  
He cannot do what he wants most desperately to in this moment. It would be reprehensible. This man is not the same one who—hurt Lin and his brothers and Lillian and countless others for so many years. No matter the fact that he is quite clearly still abusive to his children over here, this Lionel does not deserve Lin's rage.  
  
He deserves _Clark's_ , and as Lin allows Tess to draw him away and out of the room entirely, he realizes he's now forced Clark's hand. The threat Lin just made, the stand he took, will be neither forgotten, nor forgiven. Someone here will have to face the consequences of his recklessness. Most likely it will be Clark, and Lin hopes his doppelganger is up to the task. It could be Tess, though, and that would be unfortunate. She's practical and yet not emotionally distant. She shouldn't pay the price for Lin's mistake. But, there are others too who could serve as scapegoats, this world's Lucas, Lian, and—Lex.  
  
Lin realizes as he and Tess turn a corner that he may have just doomed them all.  
  
After bolting from the library so quickly, Tess drags him all the way back up the stairs and into an unused guestroom with large windows that offer a clear view of the grounds below, particularly the helicopter pad. Together, they keep track of Lionel's progress out the door—as it's hard to ignore all the shouting—and over to the helicopter. He is inside, up in the sky, and moving out of sight within a couple minutes.  
  
The search for the device that enacted the switch between worlds commences shortly after that dramatic exit.  
  
Tess doesn't allow Lin to see the pass codes for certain areas, but he can still hear perfectly well. If he were so inclined, he could easily figure out the correct sequences within a couple attempts. Lin isn't inclined, though. He doesn't care who or what gets him in, so long as he gets in. It does make him briefly wonder just how much Tess actually knows about the extent of his powers—or, rather, Clark's. Is this more maneuvering on her part, letting him think her ignorant or trusting? Or does she really either not know or not care that having him face away from the touchpads and screens is anything but a guarantee of continued security?  
  
It almost makes his head hurt, thinking this way. He hasn't had to process information in this manner for, well, seven years or more. Lin's not used to second- and triple-guessing every single aspect of interaction with people anymore, especially not those to whom he's supposedly closest. Just more motivation to get back home where at the very least he's not constantly having to keep his guard up against his own family.  
  
"I don't see why it would be in here," Tess mutters, hitting the sequence of numbers that will open one of the safes, the one behind the bookshelves. They're back in the library at Lin's urging because in his world, when they had all moved into the castle, Lex was given five pass codes in amongst other papers like the deed and expense reports and whatnot. The four of them had then spent an entire afternoon trying to figure out what exactly each sequence opened (or, as Lucky had suggested, kept locked away).  
  
If this world indeed runs parallel to Lin's in certain respects, it would make sense then for the number of safes and hidey-holes to also correspond. Which meant, more than likely, that if the device they were looking for were here at the castle, it would be here in the library, downstairs in the wine cellar, or upstairs in the master bedroom—which had been the first place Lin had checked, seeing as how that was where he had woken up earlier. Needless to say, there was nothing strange or suspicious found either in or around the bedroom, and that didn't make any more sense than the rest of this debacle did, so why was he surprised?  
  
Lin sighs from his place in front of the fireplace, which isn't holding a fire for the first time that he can remember in a long time. It's also clean as a whistle, no ash or scorch marks anywhere on the stone, and that simply makes it even more surreal to be standing here.  
  
There's an audible click as the locking mechanism deactivates on the safe, and Lin pushes away from the stone to turn and look over Tess' shoulder at the contents this world's Luthors keep in their safe–  
  
–only to rapidly stumble as far back across the room as he can when breathing proves unexpectedly difficult in the face of–  
  
Tess slams the safe shut and even whirls to face him, putting her body between him and the safe as though that's extra shielding from the Kryptonite's radiation. Lin is bent over, hands on his knees, and his breath is back in his chest, but the sweat is still running down his face, and he can still effortlessly recall the sensation of his own blood boiling inside him.  
  
"I didn't know that was in there," Tess immediately states, and Lin may now be off his game a bit, but he can tell that what she's saying is true enough. There's always room for doubt, and he thinks at some point she'd probably at least entertained the idea that Kryptonite might be in there, but he can buy that she didn't knowingly open a safe full of Kryptonite with him standing close by.  
  
He gets the impression that if Tess had really wanted him incapacitated or out of the picture, she would've done it herself already—or have goaded Lionel into doing it when he was here.  
  
So, Lin nods in acknowledgment from his position staring at the floor and trying to screw his head on tight once more. Even his hands are sweating, and it's been so long since he was last exposed to the stuff that it likely takes him longer to get over the effects than it used to, than it probably should.  
  
He seems to have gone soft somehow, and that just serves as a reminder that, for all that Superman is a powerful figure and that Lin himself is pretty resilient, there are some things out there he'll just never be able to withstand and overcome.  
  
He's embarrassed to note that, when he stands and puts a quick hand up to his face, not all the moisture he finds there is sweat. It's not that he's especially ashamed of crying, not when there are other parts of his life he'd be _truly_ mortified of others seeing or finding out, but he's also never done it in front of an almost complete stranger before.  
  
He'd bet anything that Tess' Clark doesn't cry—doesn't seem the type. More like Lex, Lin's Lex, in that regard probably.  
  
"It's okay," he eventually says, straightening up and smoothing down his clothes. He'd tripped over a rug in his haste to get away from the safe, and so he takes a few steps and bends down to straighten it out and flip the corner back down flat. When he then stands upright again and looks over at Tess, she has a perplexed expression on her face. Lin's not sure how to interpret it exactly.  
  
Her Clark probably wouldn't set things back to order if he'd messed them up, either. From what he's been able to glean just based on the surroundings, along with Tess' and Lionel's behavior, this Clark who lives in this horrid, depressing castle seems like quite the jerk—like the rich brats Lex had gone to school with, or whose like Lin had had to suffer those two months he'd been at Excelsior, or maybe most reminiscent of Lex himself when he'd been younger and angry and convinced that he was all alone and no one cared about him save Lian.  
  
Lin stands there, staring at Tess, and he wonders not for the first time where Julian is here, where Lucas is, or Bruce and Alfred and Dick. For there is a reason why Lin would turn out like this Clark has and why this world's Lex is the polar opposite of his counterpart back home, and some part of Lin knows what that reason is, despite with all his heart not wanting to believe it.  
  
"Is it just Lex and Clark?" Lin forces out. Then, at Tess' increased look of confusion, he clarifies with, "How many children does Lionel have over here? Just the two, or are there more?"  
  
Tess' immediate reaction is a deeper furrowing of her brow whilst a grin slowly appears, twisting her mouth into a humorless and unpleasant shape, almost a baring of teeth—a sneer of Luthor-like proportions.  
  
Oh—so some things truly don't change.  
  
"Well," Tess starts to say, and suddenly her posture shifts, and she's now moving away from the safe and towards Lin with a purpose and intent he doesn't like the look of, "I suppose that all depends on one's definition of 'children.'"  
  
Lin takes in a deep breath just as Tess comes to a halt less than a foot away from him. She lifts her hand, and it's on a direct path to Lin's face when he jerks his head back, quickly following that up with a sidestep, so he's decidedly out of her reach—at least for now.  
  
But, now that leaves the two of them standing here in a silence that's anything but empty, Tess with her arm hanging in the air and a curious expression on her face, and Lin several steps away, having gone blank again as soon as her voice slipped into that deeper register he wants no part of.  
  
"By whom?" Lin whispers, looking at her with new, open eyes. Red hair and big eyes, and it feels like he should have known this entire time.  
  
"Pamela Jenkins," she replies with a surface ease that belies the emotion now visibly rippling behind her eyes. "Was she in your world too? Here, she was Lillian's nurse. . . "  
  
Lin looks away finally, turning his head so he's facing the stained glass windows and not the unsettling look of hunger on Tess' face that she's probably not even aware is there.  
  
"The name is familiar," he answers, "but I never had much—contact with– with Lillian after she became sick. I couldn't tell you anything about a Pamela Jenkins." Lin risks a glance at Tess' face, saying, "I'm sorry," because he has an idea what knowledge like that might have meant to her.  
  
She shakes it off quickly enough though, her expression clearing and settling on something a little resigned and whole lot more determined.  
  
"It's all right," she tells him, seeming to deflate as her hopes are dashed. She jerks her head back in reference to the safe and says, "Nothing in there, either—apart from a few folders and the, uh, well."  
  
Lin nods in agreement with that summation. "Well" just about covered it. She's probably expecting him to ask why there's Kryptonite in what is quite clearly Clark's safe, but Lin doesn't need to.  
  
He knows why he would keep it there and imagines Clark does so for the same reason: precautionary measures. It makes perfect sense, especially when Clark is living in close quarters with another person, and of course now Lin understands why the two aren't engaged or even publicly acknowledged as a couple.  
  
He and Clark really are just different versions of the same person. It's amazingly disturbing.  
  
Lin sighs and moves over to drop down on the couch. He's feeling fine now, but that's physically. There's no time to waste, but he needs just a few minutes to get back in the right headspace for this wild goose chase.  
  
They don't even know what they're looking for, not really. Tess had confessed earlier in the search that she'd never actually seen what Clark had mentioned in passing as being "a way out of this mess." She said there had been drawings scattered around Clark's desk a couple of times, but that he'd cleared them away every time she came near, and she'd barely managed a few glances at them. So, it could theoretically be anything, some piece so small they wouldn't know it even if they did stumble upon it. Lin was sure though that whatever it was it wasn't up in the bedroom. He'd looked and looked and scanned every inch of that room, and still he'd found nothing out of the ordinary. And it's not as though he's been traipsing around the castle, either, where the device or object could have potentially fallen or become lost on the way. Simply—bedroom, bathroom, hallway, staircase, a straight path to the library where they'd waited for  and been forced to put up with Lionel, and then back up the same set of stairs, this time to that guest bedroom, and then once more back to the bedroom.  
  
Lin had retraced their steps twice now, looked in every room, every nook and crannie, and there was no sign of what had done this.  
  
"Maybe," he says, as Tess follows him over and takes up a seat across from him in one of the elaborate chairs, "it's not even here anymore." She frowns, and Lin continues, at this point just thinking out loud. "It could still be with your Clark. Maybe he took it with him when he jumped over."  
  
But, Tess isn't frowning and nodding in acknowledgment. She's frowning as though deep in thought, like what Lin just said has put her on another train of thought. He gives her a minute to work it through, subtle shifts in expression showing she's rapidly arriving at some logical conclusion, and then he asks her.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
She meets his eyes, and it's right there that she knows, not thinks, knows what's happened.  
  
"He took it while he was here," she says, the admiration in her tone contrasting sharply with the bitter look on her face, "right under our noses."  
  
Lin frowns, and it takes him an embarrassing amount of time to work out what she's saying, but then it eventually clicks into place.  
  
Lionel, that clever, sneaky son-of-a-bitch. A lecture that meant nothing and a long period between when he'd landed and the moment he'd walked into the library and the fact that he'd fixed himself a fucking drink. He'd swung by for one purpose and one only: retrieving whatever it was he'd—lost.  
  
Lin covers his mouth with his hands and closes his eyes. He leans forward to put his elbows on his knees, and for a moment he just sits there, stewing in self-recrimination. It's painfully obvious now of course, and Lin hasn't been played this badly since, well, Lionel last pulled one over on him all those years ago. People had died that time, several of them. People had a habit of dying when Lionel was involved.  
  
But, that time a little more than seven years ago, when all those people perished in quick succession—Chance, Liza, the good doctor Phillips, Hurly and Burly the bodyguards—someone had also been made to pay for it.  
  
So Lin opens his eyes again, looks at Tess, and says, "Well, we'd better go and get it back then."  
  
***  
  
 _Perchance_ , The Periphery  
  
 _What is the difference between one's perception of a thing and the reality of the thing itself? Both are what is sensuously knowable and nothing more. Both are also true, as much as anything can be categorically true. The difference stems from in whom the "truth" originates. Perception separates; reality binds. But, is reality actually knowable? Does a man know the reality of himself more precisely than he perceives the reality of another? Can he?  
  
How to describe beauty then, which is said to exist in the eye of the beholder? Is that a notion recognizable through perception only, something fluid and varied? Or is it a reality? Will some things always be beautiful and others never so?  
  
And what then of love? For is the object of such infinitely deep emotion a knowable reality—or merely the particular perception one prefers most?  
  
Then, could not reality too, like perception, truth, or beauty, exist solely in the mind of one beholding it? Who is to say what is really there and what is only fantasmata?_

 

_  
_


	4. Four

**One**  
  
Tess drives. Lin pretends to be calm. The conversation is stilted and sporadic, but what's said is enough—more than enough to fill in the gaps a whole world has created within these people.  
  
"There was a baby, I think," Tess volunteers at one point, "but it didn't live very long—maybe a couple months." Her eyes were locked on the road, and to all outward appearances she is calm and completely forthright. It's clearly old news and to her neither especially important nor affecting.  
  
"How– how did the—baby die?" Lin asks, trying to hide the tremor in his voice.  
  
But, Tess just shakes her head. "I don't know for sure." She glances over at Lin before adding, "No one's ever really said, and I know better than to go poking around. Although," and here she tilts her head in consideration, "I'm pretty sure it's something to do with Lex."  
  
Lin makes a sound of disbelief, and Tess looks over again quickly before going back to the road. "Don't believe me? Well, can't say I blame you. I mean, I'm not certain, but, see this one time—and don't ask me what the original discussion was. I can't remember. But, this one time, Lex was talking, and we were all in Dad's office arguing, only he was sitting facing the windows. And then Lex says something like, 'don't pretend you actually care about me,' and Lionel just swung around with this—look on his face like I've never seen."  
  
"Angry?" Lin guesses, but Tess shakes her head decisively.  
  
"No," she responds, and her voice is disturbingly quiet, "and that's what made it so weird." She says nothing then for a time, long enough that Lin thinks maybe she just won't finish the story. But, some 20 minutes later, just as they pass the halfway mark of the drive and Tess gets on the freeway that will take them straight into Metropolis, she says out of the blue, "I think it was disgust."  
  
Lin turns to look at her. "What?"  
  
"On his face that day," Tess clarifies. "I think that's the most disgusted look I've ever seen, and it was Lionel looking straight at Lex." Another beat. "There were other things too, casual remarks and references to things in the past, but that's what sticks out to me."  
  
Lin swallows around the lump in his throat. "That's a pretty big leap," he offers, to which Tess merely shrugs, shooting him another look.  
  
"If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's to trust my instincts, and in this case they're telling me that whatever happened back then—it has something to do with Lex. And Lionel hates him for it."  
  
"Okay," Lin says, "so let's say you're right, and this is purely hypothetical, mind. What's the difference then between how he treats you and– and Clark, and how he treats Lex? From what I could tell today, he seems just as dismissive towards you two as it sounds like he is of Lex." Tess makes a scoffing sound, as she pulls into the left lane to pass a slower car. "What," Lin asks, "you disagree?"  
  
"It's different," she states. "You don't know because you're not from here, but it's– "  
  
"Oh, don't play that card with me," Lin argues, the slightly annoyed tone of his voice no doubt the reason Tess glances over. "That 'you don't get it' card won't work, okay? I think I understand exactly what the situation is, and I'm telling you: Lex would never do—whatever it is you're alluding to. He just wouldn't."  
  
"Yeah, well, your Lex is obviously different from the one who lives here because I can completely buy that he would kill someone, especially someone standing in his way."  
  
"I thought you said you didn't know the particulars," Lin bites out after he's recovered sufficiently from the shock of what she just said.  
  
_Julian_.  
  
"I don't," she retorts, "but it doesn't take a genius to put the pieces together. Face it, Colin, he may act like a nice guy where you're from, but deep down Lex is just like Dad."  
  
Lin remains silent for the remainder of the drive, feeling both chilled and ablaze. Tess tries once or twice to initiate further conversation but soon gives up when Lin ignores her.  
  
His thoughts are of home where the world at least makes sense. Even if it were still cruel after a fashion, it has nothing on this place. Tess is wrong. Lex is incapable of killing anyone, least of all. . .  
  
But, here, they'd never had a chance. For the first time in his life, Lin realizes just how good he's had it. For even in the darkest parts of home there were the lights of his brothers. There was purpose and duty, and he had suffered for something, someone, many someones. Back home, there is love.  
  
Here, there's only the echo of it. Maybe Tess and Clark love each other, but Lin thinks it unlikely that any feeling between them was born of something other than desperation. There is no motivation here for Clark greater than his own survival, and for how long will that truly be enough to keep him from falling into the abyss that is inside both him and Lin?  
  
If he hasn't tipped over already. . .  
  
***  
  
**Two**  
  
It's been four hours already. How long does it take to simply pick up the mirrorbox and snap it out of alignment once more? Clark can't fathom the depths of stupidity necessary to be incapable of executing this action within a minute, two on the outside—not four hours and counting. Is Colin simply too slow to make the switch? Accidents do happen. Maybe Father over here went too far one time too many. Maybe these versions of his brothers play too rough or this world's citizens are more hateful towards the family.  
  
Or maybe Colin does not want to come back. Perhaps he likes it in Clark's world, hard as that is to imagine when faced with the Stepford reality of this one.  
  
Lex is still puttering around down the hall in the executive kitchen—coffee, he'd said. Lucas, though, remains in his spot by the windows, surreptitiously keeping an eye on Clark.  
  
He's relatively certain this is Lucas' office. The décor is neither Lex nor Clark, which isn't to say that he and his double necessarily have the same taste, but there are objects and small touches that seem to speak more to Lucas' personality than they would to either Lex's or Colin's. It's a standard modern design scheme that more than likely came with the office, and only here and there are the tiny, strange deviations that set it apart—that would go unnoticed were he not as observant as he is.  
  
There is an ugly blue and red scarf, hopefully handmade because actually paying money for something like that would be ridiculous, that is wound around and carefully tied at the base of a lamp near the windows. Clark inspects the small bar area in one corner, complete with camouflaged mini-fridge, and discovers bemusedly that the inside is full of nothing but chilled cans of Coca-Cola, while the crystal decanters on top meant for the finest alcohol stand empty. Framed and hanging near the desk, there is a sketch of a woman's face done on yellow legal paper. Clark doesn't know who it is, but it's clearly a treasured item. And there are photos of people spread out under the glass of that same desktop, the majority of whom he also does not recognize. Clark can place Lex easily enough, and there is one of a man with his own face but longer hair and a weird expression who Clark knows must be—Colin. The rest are strangers.  
  
This angers him.  
  
"Who _are_ these people?" Clark asks aloud, and, standing as he is over the desk with its glass top, he sees his own reflection glaring up at him as though he too is kept here—his face between a bland-looking older couple, each with an arm around a boy who appears vaguely familiar, though Clark can't say why. "I don't know any of them. . . "  
  
Lucas' voice comes drifting over from the other side of the office, calm and clearly amused. "Of course you don't," he says. "They live _here_."  
  
Clark looks up, glaring hard, but Lucas still has his back to him. His front is reflected in the windows he faces, though, and Clark feels suddenly off-balance. What is reflection here, and what is real? He looks down once more, shifts his weight to his right leg, and now his face is right next to Colin's under the glass. It's the same face but wholly different. The strange expression, the different hair style, the straighter posture, all of it is like looking into a funhouse mirror.  
  
A rush of air from his left hits him suddenly, and then Lucas is peering over Clark's shoulder. It's just one more thing that separates them from each other: Colin is surrounded by people. The photos here under the glass act as another kind of reflection. For alive in this world are people with their arms open, their hearts leaving room for him, for Colin Luthor, to rest inside.  
  
"That is of course Lin," Lucas needlessly offers, his hand coming up between them to point at the picture. Then, the hand gestures at the photos above and below. "Lex," he says first, followed by, "Sarah. She works here."  
  
Clark takes a step to his right, putting some much needed space between them, then points at the picture of the boy to the left of Colin. "And him?" he asks.  
  
Lucas turns his head to look at him, staring keenly with those unsettling eyes of his. "Julian," he says, voice almost breathy—and Clark can make out freckles on the boy's face in the picture, can see his eyes are like Lex's and Lillian's, his hair like– like Father's almost, his mouth wide and upturned like he was happy when this was taken, like he was okay and healthy and not– not–  
  
"How old is he?" Clark whispers, and his words fog up the glass desktop, and it's only then that he realizes how close he's gotten. "He's still– isn't he?" he thinks to ask, the sudden dread overtaking him that maybe this is an old, old photo, and—accidents do happen. Maybe this boy isn't here anymore. Maybe he's gone too. . .  
  
Clark moves back quickly from the glass, turning to look Lucas in the eyes so he'll know the truth of his answer.  
  
"He is 'still,'" Lucas confirms, a hint of a smile curling the corners of his mouth. He then puts a hand on Clark's shoulder, gives it a heavy, awkward pat no doubt meant to be comforting, and Clark can't even find it in himself to be mad that the guy was making fun of him with the phrasing of that answer. He returns back to studying the photo just as Lucas adds, "He's 16, just celebrated last month."  
  
Julian. Little, tiny Julian, alive and breathing, and a teenager. Clark breathes out deeply, and Lucas pats his shoulder again, and now the expression on Colin's face in that photo makes sense to him.  
  
He is in other people's hearts, obviously. Here, there is a better, more stable Lex and someone who moves as Lucas does and that Sarah with her dimples and this world's Julian and the older couple with their bright smiles and their kid and the younger man with the laughing blue eyes standing next to—was that _Bruce Wayne_?  
  
And that was only a few of them, only a small number of the pictures surrounding this Colin.  
  
But, the truth is, the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, the open mouth, the tilt of his head, the positioning of his arm—up and stretched out to the side like he's touching someone else outside the frame, wrapping his arm around the person—all mean something more than that Colin is loved.  
  
"He's a good person," Lucas suddenly says, and he's still looking at the photo of Julian.  
  
But Clark doesn't think that's who he's talking about.  
  
For it is quite obvious that what truly sets them apart is the fact that Colin loves—would love all these people if he doesn't already.  
  
And Clark can't say that about himself.  
  
***  
  
**One**  
  
Inside, the building is almost exactly the same. For as soon as they pass under it, down into the company garage, Lin finds he's able to breathe once again without difficulty, even if the pacing is too erratic to be calm and his hands still clench at his sides.  
  
Tess walks a step ahead always, striding confidently like any child of Lionel Luthor should in this, the veritable seat of their power. Lin puts on his best look of boredom and follows her into the private elevator. Inside, they are silent for fear of being recorded as well as spied on.  
  
It's a long ride to the top that Lin spends in observation. He surveys each floor through the elevator doors as they pass it by. Some workers are familiar to him, and he can't help but wonder at the differences in their lives between this world and his own. How much did certain actions affect Sheryl in Acquisitions? Is Craig, one of the few janitors who will meet Lin's eyes and return his smile, here a happier man or a sadder one?  
  
What about the people who aren't here? How many are living different lives because of this family?  
  
How many are dead because of this family?  
  
The elevator slides to a halt; the doors retract; and Lin and Tess both step forward at the same time. They had figured out that the layout of the executive offices was the same here as in Lin's world, with only who worked inside them different. Lionel's suite of rooms is still down the corridor, the CFO's to the right and the VP's the left.  
  
"We've timed it pretty close," Tess tells him quietly, as they both try to walk like they own the place and not at all as though they're doing something underhanded, "but there're still 15 minutes before the lunch hour ends."  
  
"This is incredibly stupid," Lin mutters, but he's going along with it. There aren't really any other options available, and it's either now or never.  
  
Access to the top three offices is blocked by one reception desk, currently empty, and the two of them keep striding smoothly down the hall past it. Tess again moves marginally ahead, but Lin's already stretched his awareness to encompass the entire building. There's no one up here, although that doesn't mean nobody's watching. Again, he feels like he's leaving Tess and her Clark in the lurch by attempting this, but in fact their current plan to get the device back is the most conservative one they'd come up with. The alternatives included everything from Tess going in alone while Lin provided distraction to Lin skipping the preliminaries altogether and simply breaking in through the windows of the office. The latter was Lin's facetious contribution, and he hadn't put much stock in it to begin with but definitely axed it after Tess disclosed some vital information.  
  
Evidently, Clark had once confided to Tess that Lionel's office, and indeed most of the Luthorcorp building itself, was like a rotating booby trap of Kryptonite, but one consistent area heavily saturated with the stuff was the exterior.  
  
"It's thin, he said," Tess had related to him when they'd still been back at the castle, "but it's definitely powerful. I've seen his reaction to walking in there." She'd studied Lin's face carefully then, before deciding whatever she'd been so obviously thinking hard about and adding, "That's one of the reasons why he stays away in the first place, and I think– I think Dad—enjoys that."  
  
Lin hadn't returned her look, had in fact kept his eyes resolutely on his clasped hands before him, and merely replied, "Among other things," leaving it at that. He would not share his secrets or the weight, the burden of them, with this woman, and he would not give away anything Clark himself had not already divulged.  
  
Maybe things are different here, he remembered thinking while sitting there. Maybe Lionel is even a smidge different, and fewer of the things he'd done to Lin he'd also done to Clark. Maybe.  
  
Hopefully.  
  
But, while the exterior of the Luthorcorp tower indeed proved unwelcoming to Lin—stronger the closer he and Tess came to it—the interior was more unsettling by far. As a whole, it's more comfortable, or at least less painful, but green vases full of fresh flowers often dot the hallway, and tables feature inlays of a garish green stone, and decorative mirrors are set with it, so that while there are great stretches where Lin walks unhindered, those spots where Kryptonite is displayed are that much more startling and excruciating. The pieces are simply many little touches that add up into something greater and more troubling, and Lin, as he and Tess now draw near the doors of Lionel's own office, thinks perhaps things _are_ in fact greatly different here, although not necessarily the better for it.  
  
In his world, Lionel wanted, and kept, Lin close—too close. Here, though, Clark is deliberately pushed back, held at a distance both literally and figuratively. Lin wonders at the disparity. He wonders what factors precipitated this desire of Lionel's to force Clark away, to in essence banish him.  
  
"Here we are," Tess says quietly, almost in a whisper, and Lin looks at a pair of doors he hasn't seen in years. These are of opaque glass, clearly custom-made to Lionel's specifications, and he'd forgotten the sound they made when pushed open, the slight breathy hiss.  
  
Back home, Lex had changed a number of things upon taking over the company, foremost among them being its name and overriding purpose, but the CEO's office and indeed the entire building itself had undergone a significant transformation as well. The way to Lex's office was through mahogany, not glass, and while his doors are just as unique as Lionel's, they're infinitely more personal. Lucas had made those doors.  
  
Lin and Tess now share a look, both mentally—and at least in Lin's case, physically, as well—preparing themselves for going in there of their own volition, and in the end it's Lin who moves forward and pushes open the glass.  
  
He hisses slightly, but the Kryptonite isn't nearly as prevalent or powerful as he'd been dreading. Here, he finds himself thinking, is Lionel's hubris in action.  
  
Tess immediately passes him, striding over to the desk and kneeling down on the floor in front of the left side of it. She then flips back a portion of the rug there, exposing a strangely antique safe for such a modern crime lord. It's set in the floor, for God's sake. Lin makes a mental note for when he's back home to check Lex's office again. He hadn't thought to check the floor. . .    
  
"Do you know the combination?" Lin asks her, after having scanned the room from his place just inside the doorway, where the Kryptonite's effects are least felt, and finding no surveillance here at all. Typical Lionel, spying on everyone but hoarding his own privacy like a dragon its treasure.  
  
He can see Tess distractedly nodding in answer to the question, already busy turning the old-fashioned dial of the safe in the correct sequence. To Lin's hearing, skewed and warped as it is here by Kryptonite, each click of the tumbler is like a clap of thunder.  
  
" _How_ do you know?" Lin thinks to ask, but she's suddenly become taciturn and simply glares at him over the top of the desk when he raises his eyebrows significantly.  
  
Then the thought occurs to him that perhaps—maybe this isn't as straightforward an endeavor as he'd thought. Maybe Tess has been planning something very much like this for quite awhile now. She is a Luthor, after all.  
  
"There!" she crows suddenly and sure enough quickly after lifts open the door of the safe. She then drops out of his immediate sight by swinging her legs out and sitting down on the floor.  
  
When Lin's finally crossed the length of the room and come up beside her, he sees she has several file folders in her lap and is bending down to pull out yet more of the safe's contents.  
  
"Here, let me," he says, waiting until she's pulled her arm back and shifted slightly away to give him room, before quickly kneeling and reaching in. There are numerous folders, but Lin eventually finds what he's looking for at the very bottom. It's smooth, slick almost like glass, but when he grabs hold of it, he finds it surprisingly hot to the touch. "What the– ?" he begins, lifting the strange object out from Lionel's clutter of secrets.  
  
"That's it!" Tess confirms in an intense whisper. She puts an excited hand on his arm, and Lin quickly glances over at her.  
  
"You're sure?" he insists, and Tess gives a firm and definitive nod. Lin exhales in relief, cradling the small, mirrored device to his chest as he rises to his feet once more. He looks down at Tess where she sits amid a heap of folders, all no doubt serving as testament to Lionel's wrongdoing, and he asks, "What are you planning to do?"  
  
Tess merely smiles up at him, and it's not a nice smile—not in the least. Then, she goes back to examining the files and papers within, saying only, "Finders keepers. . . " before trailing off.  
  
Lin takes in a deep breath then steps back from the desk. The doors to the office still stand open across the way, and he looks down at Clark's watch on his wrist and, with a shock, notes that there is less than five minutes left of the official lunch break.  
  
"We need to go," he says, and Tess nods but makes no move to actually get up and leave. " _Tess_ ," Lin hisses, "time's almost up. We have to get out of here, or we'll be caught."  
  
She gives a great sigh and nods again, but this time she quickly sets about gathering up all the folders and getting to her feet. It's only when she goes to lift them that they both see the problem here. There are too many for her to manage by herself. It's a huge safe that's secured into the floor, and it'd been full of files.  
  
"Fuck!" she grits out, standing up and putting her hands on her hips in frustration. "What the hell do I do now?"  
  
Lin bites his lip before carefully sliding the mirrored gadget into his pocket, where it barely fits and looks obscene, and then he bends down and begins picking up as many folders as he can keep secure. Of course, it's not the weight that's the issue but rather the balance.  
  
"Colin," Tess whispers, and there's worry in her voice, but she nonetheless bends down to help him, stacking them for him when he can no longer safely lean over.  
  
"Hurry," is the only thing he says in response, and this has to be one of the stupidest things he's ever done. But, they need this, Tess and Clark. They need what these folders contain, and he'll help them if it's the last thing he does.  
  
He doesn't want anyone forcibly under Lionel's control—least of all someone like Tess, least of all himself.  
  
"Oh, God," Tess says once everything's up and the safe is clear. She sets her own large pile of folders on the desk before carefully, and as quietly as possible, lowering the safe's door and spinning the dial. Then, flipping the rug back into place, she once more picks up her share of the stolen folders and again leads as they leave the office.  
  
Lin follows, carefully giving things a once-over to make sure nothing is too obviously out of place. He hip checks one door and then the other, causing them to swing shut with that same whooshing sound. This now leaves the two of them out in the hall, each weighed down with a large stack of files, on the top floor of Luthorcorp, where neither of them has an office or indeed any legitimate reason to be.  
  
They are so screwed.  
  
Tess is heading to the elevator, but Lin says emphatically, "No! The stairs."  
  
She turns and shoots him an incredulous look, glancing pointedly down at the files she's barely keeping control of, but Lin simply raises his eyebrows and says shortly, "Think about it."  
  
They take the elevator, and they're stuck—no way out once they're inside.  
  
"What do we do then?" Tess asks, now quite visibly alarmed.  
  
"Do you have an office here?"  
  
She nods but says, "Yeah, and there are most likely 50 cameras and mics in it. We can't go there!"  
  
Lin runs down their list of options, but there's not too many left. "Look," he finally says, "we're already caught." He throws a look around the hallway and then comes back to see Tess' face empty of color. She'd forgotten about the halls, which are being recorded like almost every other place in this building. "What we have to do is get this information somewhere safe right now, and then disappear. There's no turning back. So, the question is, do you want Clark here to help, or do you want me to stay and do it?"  
  
Tess' eyes are wide, and her breathing is just this side of full-on panicked. Neither of them had thought this through, and time's up, but it's not Lin's decision to make. It's Tess' and Clark's, and if she'd rather Clark were here, then. . .  
  
She lifts her chin suddenly, and the movement catches Lin's attention. "Get me out of the building, with the files, and far away, and then you can—go home."  
  
Lin nods, and they start walking fast, and, with nothing left to lose, they both head straight for the private elevator. The goal is to get out of the building as quickly as possible, and the stairs would take too long. Once there, Tess sets down her burden and pushes the 'Down' button. She then shakes out her arms, as the weight was clearly becoming too much for her. Lin uses the time to 'look' down the elevator shaft.  
  
He then turns his head and meets Tess' eyes, and he doesn't even have to say anything for her face to fall.  
  
"Oh, God," she moans, reaching down to desperately grab up the folders again. "Who is it?" she asks, and Clark looks more carefully. Maybe it's the CFO, and they can–  
  
His heart all but stops in his chest.  
  
"Colin?" Tess asks. Then, "Colin!" she demands, and he turns his head and meets her eyes.  
  
"Lex," he manages, and Tess takes in a deep breath before—facing forward and straightening her shoulders. "We're staying?" he asks, managing to sound only slightly disbelieving.  
  
Tess nods, and then they're both watching the numbers above the elevator doors light up in rapid succession. The last one blinks to life, and Lin sucks in a lungful of air just as the car settles on its cables and the doors slide open.  
  
He knows it's stupid and a dead giveaway, but Lin nevertheless exhales quite audibly.  
  
And in response, Lex lifts up an eyebrow, clearly amused. Then, Lin watches as those eyes slide down to the stack of files in his arms and over to the smaller but still substantial one Tess is holding. The eyebrow falls back down, and the mouth, which had almost been smiling, follows suit.  
  
Lex steps out of the elevator, Lin quickly moving to the side to get out of his way. Meanwhile, Tess wastes no time replacing Lex. Once inside the elevator, she carefully sets down the folders again to jab at the 'Down' arrow, this time to the garage level beneath the building where they'd come in.  
  
Lin follows her but keeps a tight hold on his share of the stolen files. He also can't help but stare.  
  
_Lex_.  
  
"That's quite the burden you have there," he observes, and by the slight narrowing of his eyes and pursing of his lips Lin can tell Lex has a pretty good idea what it is they're making off with.  
  
"All the more reason for us to see it quickly to its destination," Tess retorts, and Lin's not surprised by the calm monotone her voice has become. It's like giving a familiar performance, one she's no doubt had to deliver many, many times before.  
  
The doors of the elevator start to shut, but Lex swiftly thrusts an arm forward and they retract once more with a thump. Then, his eyes switch from looking suspiciously at Tess to just as intensely studying Lin.  
  
"You're awfully quiet today, Clark," he remarks, and hopefully it's just Lin's paranoia that has those eyes flicking up past his face to his hair, which he apparently wears differently than Clark. "What, no smartass comments?" And when Lin still says nothing, Lex tilts his head to the side, and the glare he'd been wearing—shifts into something else. "Cat got your tongue, brother?" Lex whispers, and a chill rushes up Lin's spine.  
  
He knows. Somehow, Lex has guessed, and now he and Tess are both–  
  
But, then Lex removes his hand, and the elevator gives another great shake before the doors start their slide towards each other. They come together, and then Lin and Tess are in a controlled fall to the garage.  
  
And while he desperately needs to concentrate on what he's doing for the next half hour, long enough to get Tess and Clark and everything they'll need far away from this place, all he can really focus on is the expression he'd caught on Lex's face before the doors had shut—that little smile that said he knew something, that conniving, smug, evil little smile.  
  
Now, the doors are opening again, and Tess is leading the way out, and Lin is following, and they'll really pull this off. They will get away, and then Tess and Clark can somehow deliver this information to the FBI or people higher up even who are clean, who aren't in Lionel's pocket. They'll be free, like Lin is back home, like he and his—brothers are.  
  
And Lex had let them walk out.  
  
And maybe not everything is so very different. Maybe some things only seem like it.

 

 


	5. Five

**Two**  
  
Time is said to fly when one's having fun, which means it slows to a veritable crawl when the reverse is true. Twenty minutes pass, and Clark looks at the clock on the wall a total of 15 times in that period alone. He resorts to making funny noises with his mouth and hands, popping and chirping and trying his damnedest to make the other two in the room as annoyed and frustrated as he is.  
  
It works, at least with Lex. Lucas is seemingly immune to Clark's—charms.  
  
Finally, there comes a great, gusty sigh from where Lex is seated at the desk, ostensibly trying to get some work down, which is followed closely by the throwing down of a pen in irritation, and then Lex is saying, "Why don't you do something productive if you're so bored? I'll go get one of Lin's sketchpads. I can't think he'd mind if you used it."  
  
He's pushed back from the desk and on his feet before Clark thinks to question, "Sketchpad?"  
  
Lex stops in his tracks, turning to meet Clark's confusion with his own. Three seconds of staring, and then he states, "You don't draw."  
  
Clark just huffs a laugh and shakes his head, scoffing at the very idea. "Apart from some crappy doodles done at school, no," he confirms, still wondering why Lex would suggest _drawing_ of all things. . .  
  
Oh.  
  
Just as he's opened his mouth to ask, Lucas' voice says from over by the windows, "Lin is a famous artist. His paintings sell for thousands."  
  
"Sometimes hundreds of thousands," Lex immediately adds, and again Clark is left with the distinct impression he's drawn the short straw.  
  
A fucking artist—well isn't that just perfect.  
  
"I don't draw," Clark bites out definitively then pointedly looks away, so the matter is dropped.  
  
"All right," Lex says quietly, turning as if to walk back to the desk, when suddenly he changes direction and sits down across from Clark in the black leather loveseat. "Well, let's talk then," he says and, at Clark's raised eyebrow, simply tilts his head, waving a hand, "unless you have a better suggestion."  
  
"How about you call off your dog and let me leave?" Clark fires back, jerking his head to indicate Lucas still behind them.  
  
Lex is the one scoffing this time. He shakes his head exaggeratedly in answer then relaxes into the sofa. His arm stretches out across the back of it, a smooth line of black on black, and he crosses one ankle over a knee. He's the perfect image of wealthy nonchalance.  
  
Clark can only seethe and glare because it doesn't seem to matter what world he's in: Lex is always the better, calmer, stronger, luckier son. He always wins without even trying, without even playing the game.  
  
So, Clark does what's become habit when facing Lex directly; he visualizes all the ways he could destroy that control. Just when he's progressed to out-and-out violence, a hand abruptly grips his shoulder tight. It's followed closely by Lucas saying into his ear, "That isn't necessary."  
  
"What isn't?" Clark responds, and if this is the game he wants to play, then by God they're going to play it. Anything is better than this maddening boredom, this endless parade of all his counterpart has that he never will. "We're just sitting here, having ourselves a nice conversation."  
  
Lucas keeps a hand on Clark until he's crossed behind and stands before him, then he lets go and simply stares down at him. They both do—look down on him without hesitation—this Lex and this Lucas who live here in this perfect fucking world with their perfect fucking brother, the artist, the kind one, and Clark knows that if he ever met Colin, he'd be just as aloof and condescending, just as impervious as these two, as Lex always is everywhere, as Dad is, as Tess is when she doesn't think he notices—or doesn't care if he does.  
  
They're all so superior. Clark's a god, and these people still effortlessly beat him every time. He crosses space, switches dimensions, and still he's the loser.  
  
He'll always lose, he realizes abruptly. He's lost to others and now to himself, to Colin.  
  
Clark looks up, meets Lucas' eyes, and knows it's hopeless. His whole existence is–  
  
"Stop it," Lucas whispers, and Clark just glares at him.  
  
"What is it?" Lex asks, and Clark just closes his eyes.  
  
***  
  
 **One**  
  
"South America," Lin suggests, "Rio?"  
  
Tess frowns, eventually shaking her head. "We'll stand out too much. What about Russia?"  
  
Lin thinks about it, tossing her another shirt to go in Clark's suitcase. She folds it carefully but efficiently then pushes it in next to its fellows. They're nearly done in here, so he whips into the bathroom and packs everything as quickly as possible. Three bags each is what they'd decided, plus the one containing the files and evidence against Lionel.  
  
When he's done, he rushes back into the shared bedroom, stopping to set the bathroom bag gently on the floor next to the growing pile of luggage.  
  
"Do you speak the language?" he asks, and Tess nods distractedly.  
  
"Clark does too," she then adds, which causes Lin to draw up short.  
  
"Really," he responds before he can think better of it.  
  
That makes her stop what she's doing—folding things small and silky that Lin never wants to get a closer look at—and look at him. "What, you don't?" she asks, and her face is a mask of confusion.  
  
Lin shakes his head. "Never needed to," he says, answering the unspoken question.  
  
Tess quirks her lips then resumes packing. "But, you could, if you wanted."  
  
"Sure," he agrees, not quite understanding what she's getting at. "I guess I could theoretically learn any language, but so could anyone."  
  
Again, that makes her lose concentration on what she's doing, only this time she fully turns to face him and appears visibly upset. She even throws down onto the bed the slip-thing she'd been carefully rolling up, and this right here is the most unsettled and frayed he's seen her yet—not when they'd woken up naked together, not when they'd worked out what had happened, not when Lionel had come and left, not in Luthorcorp, not even when standing in front of Lex and being certain that he knew what they were doing and might stop them. No, now, talking about languages and Clark is when she's most rattled.  
  
It makes no sense.  
  
"What is it?" he finally asks, and by then she's got it together enough to pick up the slip once more and go about packing it correctly. "Did I say something wrong?"  
  
Tess' face actually contorts, like a wince, only more exaggerated. She stuffs the slip in haphazardly and, without further ado, just reaches into the drawer, lifts up every delicate thing inside she can, and dumps it all into the suitcase too.  
  
"Everything you say is wrong," she answers, and then her hands are up covering her face, and Colin realizes after a couple seconds that—she's crying.  
  
After a terrible moment of not knowing what to do, he moves forward and is set to draw her in close for a hug, when she steps away from him to the side and closes the suitcase on her wadded up silk underwear.  
  
Her face is wet but so still she's practically a statue. Colin moves back slowly, waits to the count of ten and then asks, "Is that everything?"  
  
And Tess briefly shuts her eyes before lifting up the suitcase and sidestepping around him.  
  
"No," she replies briskly, "but it will have to do. We can't stay any longer."  
  
Lin sighs, takes another deep breath, and then moves to take every piece of luggage he can in hand. A whole life, two of them really, encompassed in just these few bags—not even three for each, more like two and two and the files. Lin wonders if he'd be able to do the same, if he has it in him to pack up his whole life and that of the person closest to him in four bags and go into exile with no guarantee of ever being able to return.  
  
Tess holds her two bags, Lin Clark's and the files, and when he moves up close behind her she doesn't resist.  
  
"Russia," he says quietly, and she nods her head without looking at him.  
  
"Moscow first," she confirms, her arms already tight and locked around him. "Fifth largest in the world," she murmurs, and somehow Lin sees something in her right then that almost moves him to tears.  
  
A dozen things he could say, but in the end he settles for, "Sure," and holds her as close and securely as he would Lex—as he will hold Lex again, as she will hold Clark when this is all over.  
  
At least they have each other.  
  
***  
  
 **Two**  
  
It's sudden, like a rushing, almost falling backward, like someone tugging on his shirt collar, and Clark stands up and takes in a deep breath. Lex makes some noise, but he's all of a sudden so far away that Clark can't make out what it is.  
  
Then or still, Lucas is right there. He grabs hold of Clark's hand and squeezes it hard. His breath, as it pushes against Clark's cheek with every syllable, is warm and dry. "The enemy of your enemy is your friend, your ally—your brother."  
  
Clark blinks and then blinks again when Lucas next presses a kiss to his lips. His arms are around Clark's shoulders, and the message is clear, and then he's gone, stepping back to stand beside a visibly terrified Lex.  
  
Clark closes his eyes on that image and feels himself being hooked backwards.  
  
Then, he's down on his knees, one hand on the floor to brace himself, the other holding the mirrorbox, and immediately he knows he's not alone.  
  
"Clark," he hears, and by the time the last sound in his name has passed her lips, he's up and over and nothing else is in his mind but her.  
  
He doesn't even kiss her or look her in the eyes, just holds her as close as he can for minutes.  
  
Through the looking-glass and what he found there: a world upside-down.  
  
And now he's right side-up once more.  
  
***  
  
 **One**  
  
He rushes forward and then slams back into place, and it's like whiplash or bungee jumping, like he could have kept moving past, could have gone farther if not for the cords tethering him here.  
  
And what cords they are. There's the strong, loose one to Lucas, the tighter one to Julian, the thinner but no less resilient ones stretching to Bruce and Dick and Alfred.  
  
He's pulled close suddenly, and he's taller, physically more imposing, but always Lin feels smaller in Lex's arms. He moves enough to free his hands, and then he's holding Lex's face and kissing him.  
  
There's not even a cord to Lex because that would mean they were separate.  
  
Lucky is turning away, and Lex seems startled, but the clothes he's wearing are his, and it smells how it's supposed to, sounds like it should, _feels_ right.  
  
Finally, he draws back, and Lex chuckles, his forehead pressing against Lin's and his hands gripping the material of Lin's shirt and his breathing ragged and desperate. Lex was scared, Lin realizes.  
  
"It's okay," he tells him. Then, he repeats it, louder this time and more confident, so Lucky will feel he can respond too. "It's okay."  
  
"Christ, I thought. . . " and Lex doesn't finish, but Lin knows what he'd thought. He'd thought it himself more than a few times while over there.  
  
"But, I'm not," he says now, and the unspoken _'I'm not trapped there anymore'_ is likely heard by all of them. Lin then moves back farther, and opens his eyes to really see what's in front of him.  
  
"Glad you're home!" Lucas calls out from where he's standing across the room—far enough away for decorum's sake, Lin thinks almost hysterically.  
  
"Me too," he answers back, locking eyes with Lucky briefly and smiling at the nod he gets.  
  
They'll be okay. Lex runs a hand through Lin's hair, and Lin laughs and pulls him close again.  
  
And he focuses on the here and now.  
  
***  
  
 **Two**  
  
Tess refuses his kiss at first in a show of anger. She won't open her mouth, but Clark just chuckles and makes it extra wet, licking at the tight seam of her lips exaggeratedly until she finally gets fed up enough to give in and protest, and that's when he forces his tongue inside around hers and holds her as close to his body as he can—and that's pretty damn close, considering they're wearing clothes.  
  
He has a running clock in his head at all times, and when she eventually manages to break the kiss, they're already at the 3-minute mark. Clark grins; Tess glares.  
  
"God, you're insufferable," she grumbles but makes no move to draw away.  
  
It's Clark who breaks the embrace, and he does so grudgingly. But, it's necessary. Now's the time. They have an open window for the next few hours, and who knows when the next opportunity will be, or if there will even be a next time.  
  
"I'll see you in a few," he says, stepping out of her arms slowly and holding eye contact.  
  
"'Be back before you know it'?" she offers, and he smiles again, though it's slower in coming.  
  
"Don't go out," he reminds her. "Don't look out. Don't even think about-- "  
  
"Yeah, yeah," she affirms, waving at him to go mock-dismissively.  
  
Then, he shoots her one last confident grin before taking off, paying close attention to the sound of her until he hears the locks on the door moved into place. Now, it's forward, or across, and he leaps up and takes to the air, and it's smooth sailing all the way there. He's going to take that as a good sign, not work himself up about the alternative and whether this is all just a trap designed specifically for them.  
  
It could very well be. Lex is cunning and ruthless enough to come up with something like this and pull it off, he and Dad both. They could be in on it together even—a plot to get Clark to not only show himself, but show himself to them, to come in willingly in effect.  
  
But, he doesn't think that's it. His gut, his instincts tell him not even Lex would stoop to a deception this low. He's strangely honorable about how he schemes and plots, and faking Dad's death on this large a scale would be too crooked for even Lex's taste. At least, that's what Clark's banking on.  
  
Metropolis after nearly a year away is a sight to behold. It's so small and dingy compared to some of the places he and Tess have lived in the last several months, but it is and forever will be home—their home made of lies and pain and hate. No place else like it.  
  
He touches down across the street, on the Daily Planet rooftop, but his survey of Luthorcorp turns up no sign of Lex, so he's forced to throw his net wider—to encompass the whole city. He stretches out his hearing, searching for that heartbeat, his eyes shifting through layers upon layers of cement and glass and plastic and steel.  
  
Then, he hears it—thump-thump thump, thump, thump-thump thump, thump. Lex's heart is as familiar as Tess', as their father's, and again he has to resist the urge to search for that last one another time. He's listened for Lionel for weeks now, at all times of the day, and he hasn't heard a thing. If the man's alive, he's hidden behind lead because Clark hasn't found him yet.  
  
But, Lex's heart is here, right in the city, and Clark pulls back from it a little in order to figure out precisely where it is. Then, he laughs in surprise but thinks afterward that he really should have guessed it from the start. Where does Lex go when he wants no one to find him, including himself?  
  
That's why, three minutes later, Clark is striding purposefully towards the entrance to the Atlantis. He doesn't even have to slip the bouncer anything because the guy's so shocked to see him that he just drops the rope he'd been holding closed. Well, it's useful to know that even a year away does not render him forgotten in the minds of Metropolis citizens. Clark doesn't know if that's a good or bad thing, but he at least knows it now.  
  
Inside, it's all strobe lights and loud, pounding bass and half-naked people out of their minds in one way or another. Another quick, surface look shows Lex to be firmly ensconced up in one of the second-floor balconies surrounding the main dance floor.  
  
Clark takes his time getting there, though. He likes the anticipation of it, and by the slight increase in activity before him, others are already spreading the news of his—arrival. He hopes they carry it all the way up to Lex's ears before he gets there. He hopes Lex's strange heartbeat skips a beat and finds himself filtering through the many layers of sound and blocking every one but one in eagerness. Will Lex smile? Will he shift in his seat? Will he become nervous, excited, frightened, angry?  
  
The steps are a delicious torture, as so many people are now watching his every step that their eyes seem to put weight on him. _'This is important,'_ they're saying.  
  
He reaches the top of the metal staircase and turns to the left, and there along the side, sitting casually on a sofa with his arm stretched out along the back of it and one ankle resting on the opposite knee, is Lex. Someone's bent over and whispering into his ear, and Clark hears what he's been waiting for.  
  
Thump-thump-thump, thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.  
  
He can't help grinning, amusedly thinks he probably looks like a hungry shark or a vampire and doesn't care. The person, a man, moves away from Lex when Clark's finally spotted, and then Lex is looking at him.  
  
Then, Clark is closing the distance between them, and it's like time starts up again. The wall of sound that is the Atlantis and its patrons rises up once more, and everything and everyone is noise and flash and insignificant—everyone but. . .  
  
"Well, hello, you," Lex says quietly, his mouth tilted and creased into his best self-satisfied smirk.  
  
Clark drops down into the chair across from him and mirrors Lex's posture and position exactly, making him actually laugh—not chuckle, or grin, but full-out laugh.  
  
"Fancy meeting you here," Clark returns, and he looks at Lex and doesn't see the man from that other world, that kind and almost careless man who was so free with his feelings and thoughts. But, he doesn't see his rival any longer, either, the man he had to fight and conquer or else be conquered by. He looks and sees dilated pupils and thin irises and dark circles and sweaty hands and a significantly thinner body than he remembers, and he sees someone who was repeatedly publicly humiliated, verbally and emotionally and sometimes physically attacked, and he sees this person, and he sees him as he is here for perhaps the first time.  
  
He sees this Lex; he sees his Lex.  
  
"Buy you a drink?" Lex offers, and what he's really asking is all in his eyes—only in his eyes.  
  
Clark looks, sees, and answers, "I'd like that."  
  
***  
  
 **One**  
  
Lin measures and cuts the stretchers. Then, he knocks them together gently and pulls out the canvas, cutting, stretching, and stapling it to the back of the wood. Once that's done, he finds he needs to sit down and think, really think, about what he's doing. That heavy, itchy feeling is slowly creeping up, and he reaches over to the desk and grabs a permanent marker just lying there. It's slow going writing on his arm because the ink is pretty much used up, and he remembers now that he'd set the damn thing there for a reason—to throw it away—but he makes do. It's only a few words to serve as a reminder to himself, and if he were better at paying attention to notes he'd simply invest in Post-Its and be done with it.  
  
In the end, he doesn't gesso the canvas. It's stupid and risky and against what everyone in the business would advise, but it feels right not to. The oil will react differently than he's used to, an unexpected complication he looks forward to playing with, and the untreated canvas will absorb and "eat" more of the paint, with the linseed oil over time eroding the picture itself. It will take more time and more paint to get a coherent picture, and eventually all that effort will simply decay. It will be dark where it isn't supposed to be and soft where it should be defined. What makes it beautiful, the paint, will also destroy it. It's a self-destructing work of art, and Lin's in love with it before he's even set out his first pigments.  
  
Normally, he works with music playing—blasting, Lex would say—but he likes the silence for this one. It's good for introspection. Despite it being midwinter, the weather's surprisingly nice, and Lin opens a couple windows and the doors to the patio. It's relatively warm, and there's birdsong, but the sky is overcast, clouds rolling across the sun at a steady pace, and Lin's left with the impression of being inside a disco ball—light, dark, light, dark.  
  
Light.  
  
Dark.  
  
He picks out grays and neutrals but soon sets them aside in favor of more powerful colors—jewel tones that he slaps down and smears with a palette knife.  
  
The whole thing takes forever, a process of painting and then drying and then painting some more and allowing that to dry and so on for days, weeks, an entire month, and usually Lin knocks out a painting in just a few days, sometimes sooner if he really knows what he wants to do and can speed through it.  
  
But, the other worlds are always brighter and wilder to him than this one; their realities blend and blur together to form one swirling fever dream of possibility. The figures swim up out of the paint, the profile of one here shifting down into the neck and torso of another there, and they're all stuck in this thick stream of changing colors. They can't escape the past that sometimes seems more vivid and alive than either the present or a future which may or may not ever come about.  
  
Lin finishes on a Tuesday afternoon while Lex is at work. Angie's in the kitchen they've all but officially given over to her since she started six months ago. Greg's up on a ladder cleaning out the gutters on the West side of the house. Lacey's dusting and putting away the pile of books Lucas returned last night.  
  
The birds are quieter today, and the air is growing colder again, but the sun shines down, and Lin turns, opens the patio doors, and walks outside.  
  
***  
  
He puts the painting in his next installation, and every critic, every person who sees it, calls it a self-portrait. And it is; and it isn't.  
  
He never sells that painting. Instead, he gives it to the one person he wants to understand him, the one person who already does—all of him, every him.  
  
Lex hangs it in his office, directly across from his desk.  
  
***  
  
 _Our normal vision is upside down. Psychically, we learn to turn our visual world right side up by translating the retinal impression from visual into tactile and kinetic terms. Right side up is apparently something we feel but cannot see directly._ ~Marshall McLuhan  
  
***  
  
The End.  
  
30


End file.
